Report Suggests That Some Residents will Remain on Groundwater While Others Will Move to Riverwater –
According to the letter “not everyone in Davis is going to get the “good” water.” Writes the anonymous author, “He [Mr. Pryor] explained that some people in West and South Davis will still only get well water, yet pay twice as much while the rich folks in Mace Ranch get all the good, low TDS [total dissolved solids] water for their yards and homes.”
The problem is very clear from a political standpoint: some citizens will benefit from the high quality river water, while others will remain using groundwater, despite everyone paying for the water project that will triple their bill.
Writes Alan Pryor in his letter, “I would venture to say that the City would have some very, very disgruntled citizens if only citizens in certain parts of the City were to receive low TDS river water while those furthest from the terminus bringing in the river water would still only get well water while still having to pay an extra $60/month expected to be added to everyone’s water bills in the future.”
Alan Pryor acknowledged sending the original letter to city staff, but said that he had hoped to deal with it internally rather than sending it immediately to the media for broader public dissemination.
In a response from the City of Davis, interim City Manager Paul Navazio indicated that prior to the Vanguard correspondence, he was unaware of the letter from Mr. Pryor to the acting Public Works Director.
Nevertheless, he argues that he is well aware of the issues presented in the letter. Mr. Navazio writes, “In reviewing this letter, it does not appear to me that there are any issues raised therein that the engineering team for the surface water project are not aware of and actively working through.”
He continues, “This project has always contemplated a shift to Sacramento river water as the MAIN water supply source, albeit with the ability to supplement this supply with our highest quality ground water during the peak-demand summer months. “
“The groundwater would be supplied by as few as 5 of our highest quality wells, for a few months out of the year,” Mr. Navazio continues.
While he downplays the overall concern, it clearly remains a problem that the project engineers are studying, as there is a need to blend the groundwater with the surface water to both “maintain highest quality water supply” and “address uniformity of water quality issues across the City.”
The problem is that this appears to be more of a technological challenge than the city manager acknowledges, in his response to the Vanguard.
One of the chief concerns about Mr. Pryor’s letter actually deals with the issue of corrosiveness and copper discharge, along with the continued use of water softeners.
Part of the problem, however, is that riverwater will be distributed unequally throughout the city. Writes Mr. Pryor, “The desirability of providing uniformly [sic] blending of river and well water produces some challenging operational and plumbing problems for the water delivery side of the City utilities.”
He continues, “The possible difficulties lie in the fact that the treated river water is scheduled to be brought in to the north part of the City while existing groundwater wells are strewn throughout the City and perimeter, and waters pumped from them are not taken to a central distribution point.”
He continues, “I have not looked at the City’s existing distribution system to see how this might be accomplished but it will likely involve installation of a circulation system carrying treated river water to the south and west sides of Davis and possibly some storage capacity to equalize flows during periods of high use. Of course, this will likely entail a cost of millions of dollars but in the scope of a total of $250 million in water supply and wastewater plant costs, the overall relative costs are possibly small.”
“Failure to provide a uniform blended water throughout the City cause even greater copper corrosion byproducts to enter the City’s sewer because people receiving intermittent water quality with inconsistent hardness will tend to continue to use softeners on a year round basis while users receiving river water may unknowingly have a new copper corrosion problem due to the inherent corrosivity of the new water from the river,” he writes.
The crux of the problem is laid out here and it is that “the question of properly blending water is also a problem that absolutely has to be addressed for political purposes.”
He argues that the system where some are receiving river water and others are receiving ground water “would be a very tough sell to make to the furthest removed neighborhoods because it would be inherently unfair to those citizens in those furthest removed neighborhoods. Indeed, the fact that some neighborhoods might alternatively not ever see the benefits of the presumably higher quality river water was never disclosed to the citizens in any public forum or literature on the project.”
Mayor Joe Krovoza declined comment on this issue until he could be better versed on the issue.
The City Manager’s response, while downplaying the problem, does not deny that the problem currently exists.
There is some belief, however, that the issue of use of groundwater only will arise during the drier summer months when river water use would be more restricted. This is precisely, according to these sources, when the city cut a deal with developer Angelo Tsakapoulos for summer water rights.
The city could have received enough water to cover all summer water usage, however, there were apparently problems with the EIR for that quantity.
The other issue is the one that both the anonymous letter writer and Mr. Pryor raise. Namely that this issue has not been discussed in public forums and the city appears to be trying to keep it quiet, perhaps trying to avoid the issue ahead of the Prop 218 required process for protesting the rate hikes.
Paul Navazio denies that there is an issue of the information being “supressed” related to this project.
“I don’t know where this assertion comes from,” he responds. “Again, there are a number of engineering, design and implementation issues being studied and worked through that will ultimately address (and mitigate) many of the challenges posed by a conversion to the surface water as our main water supply…..all consistent with the overall goal of ensuring a reliable, quality water supply for the community.”
Nevertheless, this is the first that anyone in the public appears to have heard the issue that there may be some inequality in the quality of water based on where one lives, despite the fact that everyone will be paying a huge increase for the water.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
Its Chinatown but you are missing “the future” as Mulray said in the movie. Its not who is getting this water now that is the big deal its who is getting it in the future that counts. Remember a few years ago there was this big hoopla when Tsakapoulos wanted to develop his land to the east of Davis. He was shut down by the usual suspects but as a land owner with deep resources he can afford to wait. While he waits he can sell water to Davis to develop and improve supply needed to develop his land in the future.
Do you know why river water is more copper corrosive or what difference that makes for homes without copper pipes?
Interesting development. It seems to me in reading both Prop 218 1996 and 2009, there was something in at least one of them about a requirement that any fees/assessments of a particular property must be proportional to the specific amount of service provided to that property. In short, what that would mean is that if those in West and South Davis are not receiving as much river water, they should be paying proportionately less in city water rates for the lesser amount of river water they receive than other parts of Davis.
“In short, what that would mean is that if those in West and South Davis are not receiving as much river water, they should be paying proportionately less in city water rates for the lesser amount of river water they receive than other parts of Davis.”
And then you would also think that all other parts of the city would have to pay proportionately higher rates to cover for the shortfall.
Part 1 – Firstly, I did not subsequently provide the copy of the letter I sent to Bob Clarke to David Greenwald nor do I know who did so. I sent my original letter to Bob Clarke fully expecting it to take many months for an engineering solution to be devised by City Staff. Apparently, someone in the City thought otherwise and sent my letter on to David and I have no idea who that was. It is not my style to be secretive like that, however, and anybody who knows me understands that I always disclose that I am the writer or the source of any documents that I put out for public discussion or review or if I am criticizing someone in a public forum.
That said…onto the problem at hand. All waters have the potential to be either corrosive (to remove metal from piping) or to deposit minerals on the piping (most commonly in the form of calcium carbonate – known as “scale”). The tendency for water to be either corrosive or scale-forming is a function of the absolute amounts and the ratios of the various minerals and salts in the water as well as the pH of the water. High pH (basic or alkaline) waters with higher amounts of calcium, magnesium, and carbonates in them tend to be more scale-forming while low pH waters (acidic) with lesser amounts of those minerals but greater amounts of sodium and chloride tend to be more corrosive. River water tends to be a lower pH (more acidic) and have lower amounts of both salts (sodium and chloride) and scale-forming minerals than well water. It is considered to be more corrosive than untreated well water because it has a lower pH and has a higher ratio of salts (sodium and chloride) to minerals (calcium and carbonates) than well water.
As it turns out, however, softened well water (water which has had calcium removed and replaced with sodium to make it less scale-forming) is much more corrosive than unsoftened well water or river water. This is important because corrosive waters can leach out metals from both copper piping and steel piping. The City is currently not in compliance with the copper restrictions in their wastewater and is facing a certain timeline in which they must reduce the copper in this wastewater stream. Removing copper from a wastewater stream is prohibitively expensive, however. Further, there has not been a clear picture as to where that copper came from since there is virtually none in the City’s well water. I theorized in my letter to Bob Clarke that the copper may be leaching from homeowners’ copper pipes caused by the corrosivity of the softened water used in some homes (i.e. those that have home water softeners).
Part 2- So the City is faced with a bit of a dilemma in that both river water and softened well water is potentially highly corrosive and would tend to increase copper leaching into the wastewater stream. The solution is fundamentally simple in that if the City can properly 50:50 mix their well water with the new river water, the resultant product water is considered to be almost perfectly “balanced” with neither a tendency to scale or corrode across the entire temperature range of use. If such perfect 50:50 blending could be achieved, it would eliminate both the theorized copper corrosion problem in Davis and the need for homeowners to soften the water in their homes to prevent scaling. Since up to 6,000,000 pounds of salt are discharged into our wastewater treatment plants each year due to home softener use in the City, providing a “balanced” water would obviate the need for softening in the City which would should also reduce the excessive salts in the City’s wastewater stream as well as dramatically reducing copper corrosion byproducts in the wastewater stream.
It was this observation that spurred me to write the letter to Bob Clarke recognizing that blending of the City’s well waters and future river water source was no small task. Failure to do so, however, could make the City’s copper discharge problem even worse because you would be adding corrosive river water to the City supply in some parts of town while others elsewhere in the City would still be using softeners because they would still be reliant on well water… Essentially, that would be the worst of all possible worlds in terms of reducing the theorized copper corrosion problem in town.
After hearing Bob Clarke during a NRC meeting in February state that the City would not be able to provide such a perfectly blended water to all parts of the City, it was my honest intent to alert the PW people of that looming copper corrosion problem that spurred the writing of my letter to Bob Clarke. I did not anticipate nor plan for that letter to become common public knowledge, however, because I thought the public is generally not aware of the chemical intricacies of corrosivity vs. scaling potential of waters and it is a difficult concept to explain…as my long-winded monologue here proves.
Perhaps for those who still remember their high school and college inorganic chemistry courses, though, David could post a link to my letter to Mr. Clarke to allow those readers so inclined to bore themselves stiff reading the entire letter I sent to Mr. Clarke.
Dixon’s ordinance banning water softeners:
[url]http://www.ci.dixon.ca.us/wastewater/pdf/Ordinance08-018.pdf[/url]
What exactly are the issues with Cu in our water, both in our homes and waste-water discharge? Cu has been the preferred metal for water pipes for a very long time. I thought that Cu was relatively harmless to animal life. It does effect plant-life, i.e. it is an effective pool algecide and is used in Cu-based boat hull paint. It replaced lead water pipes a long time ago, lead considered as part of the Roman Empire’s fall in its use as their water conduits resulting in increasing infertility rates.
“I did not anticipate nor plan for that letter to become common public knowledge, however, because I thought the public is generally not aware of the chemical intricacies of corrosivity vs. scaling potential of waters and it is a difficult concept to explain.” Alan Pryor, Mar. 23, 2011
So Mr. Pryor if you really think this is too complex a part of the issue for most of the public to understand (which I think frankly is a load of tripe) then what other pieces of technical and scientific information of a crucial nature are you withholding from us with respect to this project??? Just where do you draw the line between what you think we, the members of the public, can understand something and where you think things are too complex for us plebs. And is it not the case that in drawing this line issues of political expediency and objective enter into your and the City’s calculations?
This excellent story reinforces the belief of some that important scientific and environmental information is being withheld or has been concealed, not to mention the issue of cost concealment that has already been exposed.
All the more reason to delay implementation of this project so we can dig up a few more skeletons from the closet and there can be a much much fuller and more open debate. Sorry, one council meeting in May does not meet the grade by a long way.
On a much more mundane note re the issue of water softeners and water quality: Why doesn’t the City of Davis give people, especially newcomers to the community, information on the pros and cons of water softeners, and whether one should use them at all, and if one does whether to use potassium or salt. (Brochures given to the major realtors would be one solution, or at least some help/a start) When I came to Davis 11 years ago I simply could not get good or consistent information from neighbors and others re this. Right or wrong, I ended getting a water softner and using potassium, even though it is vastly more expensive than salt because I was told it was much better for the environment having been told there was a serious risk that my pipes would silt up if I did not use a water softener. I still do not know wherein the scientific truth lies?
This is just another example of the City failing to do its job on a very fundamental issue. Or is this just too complex an issue for members of the public to understand, Mr. Pryor?
Hey there all of thee out there, still think we are governed better than Vallejo or Stockton?
To Herman re: “what other pieces of technical and scientific information of a crucial nature are you withholding from us with respect to this project??? Just where do you draw the line between what you think we, the members of the public, can understand something and where you think things are too complex for us plebs.”
Firstly, it is not my job to inform the public…that is the City’s job. I am just a private citizen that saw an obvious problem. So I spent countless hours of my own time researching it and writing up a dozen pages of documentation and submitted it to PW, the Council, and the NRC. I didn’t submit it to Davis Vanguard initially because I did not want to blind-side the city engineers. Hey, for all I knew they may have done a slew of engineering work on the problem already. Plus most Vanguard readers would be bored stiff reading it – Hell, I was bored stiff writing it!.
Secondly, judging from the comments of some on this very blog today, there is a fundamental public misundertsanding about the nature of the corrosion vs.scaling problem in water and the role of copper in the enviroment. That said, I doubt very much that the Vanguard readers are interested in my treatise on the intricacies of the Langelier vs. the Ryznar Stability Indices with respect to well water or river water and the impact of softening on the corrosion potential or scale forming tendencies of each which is what my letter to PW focused on. If you think otherwise then encourage David to post my entire letter…for 99% of readers it will be a real yawner, though
Our well water is high quality water. The problem the city faces is the long-term supply of our deep water aquifer and likely subsidence problems associated with relying on well water.
But since many on the council and staff have chosen scare tactics to push through the surface water project at this point in time, it is not surprising that people will feel cheated if they don’t get an equal share of the water that they have been misled into thinking is dirty or unhealthy.
Alan, I don’t know what your background is, but your postings are very well written and understandable. I completely agree that it is not your job to try to educate the public and/or the readership of the Vanguard. Herman’s implication seems to be that all information of potential importance and relevance to residents of Davis should be posted first on the Vanguard. The Vanguard should be the designated forum for resolving and solving all city and community problems.
The other implication that many others seem to be making is that if everyone isn’t using the river water, then everyone shouldn’t have to pay for it. I think this is a bit simplistic and fails to recognize that the City is trying to solve a water quality problem for the City, and that the use of river water helps to accomplish this objective. The primary objective is NOT to solve individual household water quality problems and to charge everyone based upon how this solution improves or doesn’t improve each resident’s situation.
Cities often have uniform rates for services, regardless of the actual amount of service that an individual receives, or the cost for the city to deliver that service to a particular individual. Those who don’t have kids attending the public schools still contribute to paying for such schools, even though one could argue they receive a disproportionate benefit, or that such benefit rises and falls based upon the typical cycle of a family. If it is more expensive to get the treated river water to some household in Davis, should those households have to pay more? One could argue that this would be “most fair” and damn the cost to get it done. However, I hope most can comprehend the impracticality of this due to the increase in costs to ALL to create such “fairness”. Hence the reason an “all you can eat buffet” works and can be such a good deal.
“The City is currently not in compliance with the copper restrictions in their wastewater and is facing a certain timeline in which they must reduce the copper in this wastewater stream.”
The North Eastern part of the US has acidic soil and significant acid rain. I would think that the water running through their Cu water pipes was in the distinctly acidic PH range. Is NYC, Boston, etc. also in violation of federal Cu waste water limits? Are CA cities actually held to account if their Cu waste does not meet the “letter of the law” with regard to Cu waste water levels?
Sue this is not directed at you per se but here’s my problem:
1. 95% of the public does not know that their water rates are tripling in the next five years or that they will be receiving $500 water bills because the collection is bimonthly.
2. As much as I think the issue of plastic bags is important, Dunning has not covered that people’s rates are tripling. He worries about the cost of re-usable bags, but people are not going to spend $1300 per year on re-usable bags, they will on water.
3. The Prop 218 that the city is preparing to send out is a joke, no one knows that they can stop the rate hike by filing a protest (in large numbers) and the Prop 218 notice doesn’t help.
4. Most people think their water tastes bad and this will improve it. Those who can afford it, probably will be willing to, but those who can’t afford it are in trouble.
5. Most people do not know this is about to strike.
If someone chooses to live at the top of a mountain next to town, should the local utility be obligated to extend water, sewer, electric and telephone lines to that person’s house and charge the homeowner the same amount as everyone else in town? Should the other residents then effectively subsidize this one resident who chose to live at the top of the hill with the great view? Or, should that resident have to drill his or her own well, install a septic system, run a generator for electricity and use a cell phone? This is sort of akin to whether you get everyone on the same “mix” or “blend” of water. What if you could get that house on the hill electricity, but only 8 hour a day and at a much greater cost than for the rice of the town? What should you charge that resident for the electricity?
[quote]Sue this is not directed at you per se but here’s my problem: 1. 95% of the public does not know that their water rates are tripling in the next five years or that they will be receiving $500 water bills because the collection is bimonthly.—- David Greenwald[/quote]David, what are you insinuating by writing “Sue this is not directed at you per se.” You know very well that I have been saying for years that our water bills would be this high, and have been gavelled down repeatedly for leveling with people.
My apologies to Alan Pryor for misidentifying him as a member of the Davis City staff. I suppose if I had read his opening sentences a little more closely I might have surmised this, and unlike many people on this post I do not know the names of even many of the most senior members of the Davis City staff.
Yes, given that Alan is not a city staff member it is not his job to educate the public. My other points stand about the city’s failure to “educate” and concealment of many scientific and economic issues. I trust, though his comment (which I quoted in my first post) may indicate otherwise, that Alan Pryor would agree that is is the job of the city and council to find a means to inform the pubic on the issues he addressed in his post, or is such a task just too difficult for lay folk???
Sue: It means you are not to blame for this mess.
David, it would have been clearer to say “I am not directing this at you”. What does the “per se” part mean or add?
I think I said that. The per se was referring to the fact that I was directing the post to you but not the blame.
[quote]”Writes Alan Pryor in his letter, ‘I would venture to say that the City would have some very, very disgruntled citizens if only citizens in certain parts of the City were to receive low TDS river water while those furthest from the terminus bringing in the river water would still only get well water while still having to pay an extra $60/month expected to be added to everyone’s water bills in the future’.”[/quote] Does this accurately describe the plan, that some parts of West and South Davis “would still [u]only[/u] get well water” (“bad water”)? And the solution is to mix the bad water and good water together so everyone gets middlin’ water?
No use trying to pit neighborhoods against each other, in any case.
To JustSaying re “And the solution is to mix the bad water and good water together so everyone gets middlin’ water?”
No, the mixed water is the highest quality possible. The point I was trying to make is if you mix the well water and river water together you get a “balanced” water that is neither corrosive nor scaling – the best of both worlds. And the comparatively low amounts of minerals and salts make it good drinking water and great for plants also. This is providing, of course, that the river water is treated to the highest standards (ozonation and carbon filtration) to remove the gross amounts of organic contamininants in it. I mean, would you drink raw river water otherwise?
Okay, so if we collectively decide we don’t want to go forward with taking any Sacramento river water, what does that mean? What are the consequences of doing nothing about future water supply over the next 20 to 50 years or more? Either there are no consequences worth paying to avoid, or there are and we think it’s some increment too high. Can you review with us the consequences of doing nothing until 2050? And, can you give us the details about the cost of waiting to do something about it until 2049?
[quote]”The point I was trying to make is if you mix the well water and river water together you get a ‘balanced’ water that is neither corrosive nor scaling – the best of both worlds.”[/quote] Does the city staff agree with this concept? Was it incorporated to any degree at all in the current plan? How big a change–and cost–will result if we redesign to meet this objective?
How about doing a [u]Vanguard[/u] article (with graphics, etc.)–written at the “general (Davis) public” level now that the cat’s out of the bag? You’ve written very clear articles about other Davis issues. And, you haven’t shied away from educating us in the past. This sounds like an important matter with not much time to understand before expensive decisions get made.
No, I wouldn’t drink untreated river. But, what do I know:: I would’t mix it in a blender with Davis water and drink it. Might us it on the house plants, however.
To davehart – I can’t speak in detail about what costs might be in 50 years if we did nothing. I never did buy the argument that we had to do this because we could not meet our waste water permit requirements. I thought there were a myriad of ways around that short of putting RO on every pump in Davis for which Councilmember Souza claims would require disposal of 1,000 truckloads a day of brine (now that is a scare tactic!). For one, we would only have to RO a sidestream portion of water from several wells to get us into selenium compliance. Our TDS discharge problems could be solved by restricting softener use to hot water lines only (Davis well water is not particularly scale forming at ambient temperatures) and require all softeners meet current state standards for efficient softener use. Instead, right now almost every softener serviced by Culligan is regenerated based on timers instead of based on actual gallons of water used. This practice, along with also softening all cold water in homes probably puts 6,000,000 lbs per year of excess salts into the Davis wastewater stream (and makes Culligan and salt sellers hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in profits). Get rid of that salt and we meet our TDS discharge requirements and probably get rid of the copper problem also (if that problem is, in fact, due to copper corrosion caused by softened water). Only ammonia and cyanide remain as concerns in the wastewater discharge and the advanced bioreactor upgrades planned for the waste water treatment plant upgrade should take care of those contaminants.
The sole reason I publicly supported the the Sacramento River project was because the consequences of doing nothing are a steadily declining aquifer until the straw goes dry. I think the only question is whether this happens in 20 years or 100 years. The hydrologists I spoke with won’t even venture a guess except to say the day is coming. I think the majority on the Council felt the same way so when the opportunity presented itself to close this water import deal, I think they took the only viable “long-term” strategy short of imposing extreme conservation measures . Unfortunately, there is probably even less support in Davis for requiring people to cut their water usage by 50% than there is for quadrupling water rates.
To justsaying – Re: “Does the city staff agree with this concept?”
I have no idea if the City staff agrees with my water anaysis and the impact of mixing waters. All I did was crunch the numbers for the chemical indices and calculated salt loading and turned the info over to them to consider. I have had no further discussions with them on the matter but I imagine if they come to think my analysis is BS that they would come out and say so to try to defuse the controversy.
“Dixon’s ordinance banning water softeners”
Now I will show you Dixon residents ignoring unenforceable bans on salt-discharge water softners when no efficient or affordable alternatives exist.
Boone: [i]when no efficient or affordable alternatives exist.[/i]
It has never been necessary to soften the cold side, which is a large part of the cost.
It’s not necessary to soften water at all. Lots of people live without water softeners.
Don: You can talk to my wife about that… handle her complaints about why her hair doesn’t curl right and why there are water spots on all of our drinking glasses and bathroom fixtures. Also, as I understand, your plumbing will more quickly clog up from hard water deposits.
Neutral: My home is 23 years old and the bathrooms and washing machine are plumbed for hot and cold, and the kitchen only hot water. I think that is the norm.
Jeff: I have never had a water softener, so I wouldn’t know. For those who do, keep in mind that softened water is toxic to your house plants.
Don: Yes… and also Goldfish. We use the kitchen cold tap water for plants and fish. Of course the high selenium, chlorine and fluoride content are also not so good for them.
Boone: [i]I think that is the norm.[/i]
Forty years ago, sure, because that was more money all ’round. But before your house was built, most reputable companies went to hot only, inside only, something you can have done at reasonable cost. Water purification is a different thing altogether.