Slippery Rock water not filling Montecito swimming pools
Rumors sometimes lead to news stories and sometimes not. In the case of Slippery Rock Ranch — TV mogul Dick Wolf’s property in the Goleta foothills — the gossip was that Montecito residents were filling their swimming pools with water from the ranch’s aquifers. While a publicist with the ranch stated last week that Slippery Rock was not selling water or filling Montecito swimming pools, the Goleta Water District confirmed that they quietly settled a long-simmering water dispute with the Law & Order creator in the sum of $10 million. In Santa Barbara Superior Court, Slippery Rock Ranch and the Goleta Water District had disputed since 2015 over possession of the rainwater sluicing off and infiltrating down under the ranch. The Water District pointed out that the ranch — 740 acres above the border of Los Padres National Forest — was in a watershed that contributed to the district’s Goleta Groundwater Basin.