Commentary: We Need to Fix Rate Structures and Operational Concerns First Not Last

waterforum-3

In a bit of irony, Elaine Roberts Musser used her monthly Vanguard column to argue, among other things, “Every expert willing to speak publicly seems to agree we need the surface water project sooner rather than later. All the Davis and Woodland City Council members agree we do need the surface water project.”

By the same token, however, at the end of a long and arduous two-hour meeting with the Vanguard, city officials and project consultants, the City of Davis Interim Public Works Director made a rather candid acknowledgment that the water project is really a long-term plan.

The City of Davis is acting proactively to complete this plan, but, despite the face that has been publically shown to ratepayers, the urgency is not nearly that great.

As Bob Clarke put it, the wells are still okay and for the time being we will be okay, no matter what the people of Davis decide to do.  Now, whether we will be okay for two years or 52 years, we do not really know.

And while Ms. Roberts Musser would argue, “Construction/finance costs for the project are probably cheapest right now because the costs of lending are at record lows; as the economy improves, these costs are likely to increase.”

These are offset by the fact that, for most citizens, this is the time when we can least afford it.

The possibility of fines may still be real, but if the residents of Davis balk at the higher water rates, the city feels confident that they can make the best of the situation and make something work.

At the same time, Mr. Clarke did argue it is better to act now than waiting until we have a problem, and there are good opportunities available to us right now to solve these problems.

On the other hand, what becomes clear, looking at the rate structure and some of the bidders, there are a lot of potential problems going forward with this project that have to be dealt with.

The difficulty in these situations is that water issues are incredibly complex, and the City of Davis obviously has its own story to tell on why we need to act sooner rather than later.

The problem is the asymmetry of information – the city has it and at the same time has a vested interest in defending it.

The result is that, when we pressed the water consultant on the problems with two of the operators that are part of the DBO process – Veolia and United Water – we get answers from the city that this is really not a big deal, the key is to include as much as possible in the DBO contract and that will pass the risk on to the operators and away from the city.

Still reading the records, we can come up with a pretty consistent story of where problems occur.  The problems start at the competitive bidding process which forces the private company to come in with a low enough bid to win it.

Now the city claims that they can write a contract, with the help of experienced attorneys, that will avoid problems that result from the confluence of the need for a bottom line profit at the same time they need to come in at a low bid.

That places the responsibility of proper staffing, proper maintenance and proper oversights squarely in the hands of the operators.

Still, we are not talking a few scattered problems.  The response from the consultant was that he was unconcerned with the operating problems by United Water in places like Fairfield-Suisun, and Veolia in places like Indianapolis or Novato.

However, the fact is the CWA is spending half a million on evaluating the bids of two companies who, as operators, have at least a questionable record, and at least one of the policy makers privately expressed far more concern about this than the city’s consultant.

There would appear to be enough problems to warrant at least looking at whether we should go forward with a private operator.  On the other hand, the consultant argues that these companies have contracts all over the country and that these problems represent a small handful of their total projects.

He quickly passes blame onto the policymakers – but what faith do we have in the policymakers?

The new council’s honeymoon is pretty much over.  There were a lot of people hopeful that the new council would bring about greater transparency and better policies.  They saw the budget discussions as a reason to believe, but increasingly those people have begun to question this council.

The rate structure is a problem that no one in city government really seems to know how to fix.

Some people believe that the city and the city council have outright lied or at least “obfuscated” how much people’s water rates will increase.

Others point out, correctly, that the estimated rates have always included an assumption about a 20 percent reduction in single family residential water consumption over the five-year period.

At the same time, even members of the council expressed concern to the Vanguard this week that the access to such information is difficult to get to.

It is not clear exactly how one can find the information about conservation assumptions, particularly if the individual does not know how to look for it.  The city web page has a water rate calculator that is fairly accessible, but the rest of the information people need is difficult to find.

That public official told me flat out that we need to do better.  The story that would be up on the city’s page would be the city’s story, but right now, the public does not even have that.

Public reports have focused on 14% rate hikes over five or six years, and they have talked about 70% rate hikes, which ignores the need to compound the rates each year and downplays the importance of the conservation component.

There is a growing frustration by many in this community, who are on fixed incomes or otherwise struggling, that the council majority simply cannot relate to those struggles.

The third comment to yesterday’s article thus completely misses the point, arguing: “And so what is the Vanguard’s alternative to the surface water project?”

We do not have an alternative.  That is not our job.

The problem right now is that the city’s plan – even if we all agreed it was necessary to do it now and at this very scope – has huge flaws that have not been publicly vetted in any meaningful way.

Stephen Souza wants to complain about the misinformation coming out about the water project – well, fix your darn city communications system that we have been complaining about for five years.

As I told someone on Wednesday, the city is operating in the 19th century in terms of communications.  We do not have an email system, we do not have a workable web page – those are, by the way, 20th century technology.  And the city is not using social media or other high tech means to communicate with an increasingly-sophisticated public.

If you want to ram stuff through during Christmas and then put forth a half-baked Prop 218 process, then you are going to get angry people.

I pointed out that the second tier policies by the city punish those with larger families who are unable to drop their consumption, and that we ought to figure out a way to factor in per person water usage rather than simply per household.

When the Public Works Director asked how they do that, I said, “That’s your job.”  They all laughed, but it was an accurate statement.

So, when Ms. Roberts Musser posts, “The water rate increases are based on consumption – the more you consume, the more you pay. That seems perfectly equitable to me…”

At the base point that makes sense, if I use more water, I should have to pay more.  Now, whether I should pay at a higher rate is at least subject for debate.

The problem that I see is that a single person who owns a home has fewer fixed water uses.  My family of five, and Mr. Dunnings’ family of six, are probably doing the opposite.  We are probably using less water per person than the one.  And yet, because six people live together, we would have to pay a higher rate if we owned a single family home and the usage bumps us into tier II, whereas right now that same usage would be tier I.

Fix that problem.

I do not have an alternative to the surface water project.  Maybe we do not need one.  Maybe all we need to do is fix this one.

But for me, having seen five years of municipal government up close, I lack confidence in consultants who have strong interests, or outside consultants who can view the project objectively but do not have to pay for it, and I lack confidence in city staff to get this right.

“Trust me” is not an acceptable answer from a public agency.

Finally, I note Mayor Krovoza’s comment to Bob Dunning’s complaining about the timing of the referendum: “This project was decided on at least four years ago. Most logically, 2007 or at least 2009 would have been the right time for a citywide referendum.”

I asked him to clarify this point because it did not make a lot of sense.  There was nothing to referendize in 2007.  He argued that they could have put the clean water agency JPA on the ballot perhaps, but there was no specific project with specific rates at that point.

I find his argument rather remarkable in itself, because from 2007 up until the point that the Clean Water Agency was formed, the city had gone to great lengths to in fact argue that it had not made the final decision on water or whether to go forward, but instead city staff merely needed the city council to go forward and approve the next incremental step in order to avoid missing possible deadlines that could produce delays.

In essence, described in the Vanguard at the time, there was never a point at which the city council approved the water project.  Instead, it created the Clean Water Agency and it became a fait accompli.

As I wrote in December of 2008 in the Vanguard: “In January of 2007, the Vanguard featured an article entitled: “ Tracing the recent history of the water supply project.” In it, we argued that there was a series of decisions that changed the trajectory of water policy to become a far more expansive and more expensive project than the original course of action. The remarkable feature is that at no point was a decision actually made to proceed with this project. Instead, there were a series of staff recommendations approved by council to explore various options which, lumped together, became a decision.”

Staff and Stephen Souza repeatedly made it a point to state that this was not a final approval.

I would remind the Mayor that, unlike him, I was actually at these meetings and reporting about it.

In 2008 I continued, “There is a basic inertial quality to this issue that is rather remarkable. There are basically two forces driving the process, neither of which are necessarily council approval. First, the concern that we will lose our place in line. Second, the concern that down the line the costs of construction will increase if we delay now.”

Sound familiar?  The place in line argument has always been bogus.  The city has a forty-year permit, and even Ken Landau told the CWA it would be unusual and remarkable, if not completely unprecedented, for the city to lose that permit.

But the other problem, as a few water experts have pointed out, is given place of origin water rights, it is not clear that the water permit would be that hard to obtain.

The bigger deal is the summer rights permit, but that is sequestered by private contract with Tsakopoulos.

The construction costs may increase and those increases will be weighed against the ability of the people to pay for increased water rates.

There is no perfect solution, but as the we step back and realize, whether this referendum goes forward or not, we will have water and we are not in crisis. At that point, perhaps cooler heads can prevail and we can get off this trajectory of insane rhetoric fueled at the bottom line by the PR consultants, originally hired by a water consultant with the financial interest in making this project happen.

—David M. Greenwald reporting

Author

  • David Greenwald

    Greenwald is the founder, editor, and executive director of the Davis Vanguard. He founded the Vanguard in 2006. David Greenwald moved to Davis in 1996 to attend Graduate School at UC Davis in Political Science. He lives in South Davis with his wife Cecilia Escamilla Greenwald and three children.

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Categories:

Budget/Fiscal

54 comments

  1. “Some people believe that the city and the city council have outright lied or at least “obfuscated” over how much people’s water rates will increase.”

    Well said David, ‘obfuscated’ is the word. Instead of putting out the 14% number why didn’t they put out the actual number and say that ‘with a 20% conservation quotient the rate increase comes down to 14%’? In my opinion it was just a sneaky way to soften the blow of the actual increases.

  2. If the County certifies the validity of the referendum, it will come back to the CC as a formal agenda item. The members will have the opportunity to do one of three things: repeal the ordinance; set for a special election; or put on the next general election (June 2012).

    I hope they do the right thing, and repeal it. Then we need to cancel our memberhip in the JPA, disintangle ourselves from the extreme financial problems of Woodland, and conduct a first class, independent study of our ground water system for long term fiscal and technical viability.

  3. [quote]In a bit of irony, Elaine Roberts Musser used her monthly Vanguard column to argue among other things “Every expert willing to speak publicly seems to agree we need the surface water project sooner rather than later. All the Davis and Woodland City Council members agree we do need the surface water project.”

    By the same token however, at the end of a long and arduous two hour meeting between the Vanguard, city officials, and project consultants, the city of Davis Interim Public Works Director made a rather candid acknowledgment that the water project is really a long term plan.[/quote]

    This commentary misses the basic point that in order to fund a long term project, it is necessary to begin increasing water rates NOW. IRONICALLY the Vanguard itself has complained the city should have started increasing the water rates long ago, as the city did the sewer rate increases. Yet the Vanguard now seems to be arguing just the opposite – let’s SLOW THINGS DOWN. You cannot have it both ways.

    [quote]The city of Davis is acting proactively to complete this plan, but despite the face that has been publically shown to ratepayers, the urgency is not nearly a great.

    As he put it, the wells still and for the time being we will be okay no matter what the people of Davis decide to do. Now whether we will be okay for two years or 52 years, we do not really know.[/quote]

    Again, this commentary is completely contradictory. On the one hand it is arguing there is no great urgency, but concedes the city doesn’t know how long the wells will last, and it could be as little as 2 years. If the wells fail in 2 years, then what? And the fact of the matter is we have a compliance problem – new water quality standards that will kick in in the year 2017 (some constituents before then). If the city is unsuccessful in arguing for a variance on the basis of “economic infeasibility”, which is highly likely it will not be able to obtain, then the city very well may have to pay fines. Fines so steep it will be as if the city had moved forward with the surface water project, but the city would have nothing to show for its delay.

  4. [quote]And while Ms. Roberts Musser would argue, “Construction/finance costs for the project are probably cheapest right now because the costs of lending are at record lows; as the economy improves, these costs are likely to increase.”

    These are offset by the fact that for most citizens this is the time when we can least afford it.

    The possibility of fine may still be real, [/quote]

    Again the commentary is contradictory. It tries to argue citizens cannot afford to pay for the surface water project right now; but concedes if fines are imposed they will have to pay anyway even if there is a delay… so that NOTHING WILL BE GAINED BY DELAY. If anything there could be greater harm bc costs would have gone up…

    [quote]At the same time, he did argue it is better to act now than waiting until we have a problem and there are good opportunities available to us right now to solve these problems.

    On the other hand, what becomes clear looking at the rate structure and some of the bidders, there are a lot of potential problems going forward with this project that have to be dealt with.[/quote]

    Again the commentary misses the basic point. It is necessary to start collecting the funding NOW, to avoid WORSE problems in the future. The possibility that problems may occur down the road does not obviate the fact that we need the surface water project SOONER RATHER THAN LATER. All large projects of this type are always fraught with problems. But delaying the project is probably fraught with EVEN MORE PROBLEMS.

  5. rusty49 said . . .

    [i]”Well said David, ‘obfuscated’ is the word. Instead of putting out the 14% number why didn’t they put out the actual number and say that ‘with a 20% conservation quotient the rate increase comes down to 14%’? In my opinion it was just a sneaky way to soften the blow of the actual increases.”[/i]

    rusty, your accusation is absolutely wrong. Page 1 of the September 6, 2011 Staff Report says the following. “Overall revenues requirements are projected to increase by 100% over the five-year period, with the average single-family residential customer experiencing an increase in their monthly cost of water from $34.75 to $77.18 in Year 5. [u]These estimated monthly water bill impacts assume an overall 20% reduction in single family residential water consumption over the five-year period.[/u] [b]Customers with below average water use now will experience lower-than-average monthly water bill impacts, while customers with above average water use would see higher than average monthly water bill impacts. The individual water bill impact will vary depending on a customer’s current water use and their future conservation efforts during the five year period.”[/b]

    All we had to do was read those up front words in the Staff Report. Anyone who did, shouldn’t have been surprised the way you were.

  6. [quote]Still reading the records, we can come up with a pretty consistent story of where problems occur. The problems start at the competitive bidding process which forces the private company to come in with a low enough bid to win it.

    Now the city claims that they can write a contract with the help of experienced attorneys that will avoid problems that result from the confluence of the need for a bottom line profit at the same time they need to come in at a low bid.[/quote]

    Precisely. It is in the terms of the contract where the protections will lie…

    [quote]Some people believe that the city and the city council have outright lied or at least “obfuscated” over how much people’s water rates will increase.

    Others point out, correctly that the estimate rates have always included an assumption about a 20 percent reduction in single family residential water consumption over the five-year period.[/quote]

    So the Vanguard has conceded there was no obfuscation. As Matt Williams pointed out in an earlier post, the information has been there all along for the public to read. This claim of “obfuscation” reminds me of a lady who complained at one of the water forums, that she felt blindsided by the rate increases, at the same time she admitted to not owning a computer, not reading a newspaper. If a citizen turns a blind eye to city issues, s/he cannot later complain of lack of transparency when as a citizen s/he did not practice due diligence.

  7. “As he put it, the wells still and for the time being we will be okay no matter what the people of Davis decide to do. Now whether we will be okay for two years or 52 years, we do not really know.’

    This candid and true statement from our current Dept of Public Works director is remarkable in its contrast to the obfuscation and “stonewalling” that was the served up to the Davis voters by the previous director, Mr. Weir. The last part of this statement, ‘we do not really know” is a true statement and outrageous! The deliberate decision by the previous Council Majority in collusion with Mr. Weir, to NOT FIND OUT the answer to this question can be seen as a “breach of the public trust”, an inexcusable offense that can warrant resignation,voter recall and firing.
    Note: both then-Councilperson Saylor and Councilperson Souza have a history of skirting a “breach of the public trust” with the false facts that they offered to the voters in their Enterprise OP-Ed piece during the Measure X-Covell Village campaign.

  8. rusty49 said . . .

    [i]”Matt, you completely missed my point.”[/i]

    Rusty, your point was pretty clear “Well said David, ‘obfuscated’ is the word. […] In my opinion it was just a sneaky way”

    If you read Page 1 of the Staff Report then there was no obfuscation and no sneakiness.

    You do understand that Condervation of Water is one of the key water strategies being used in every state of the Union west of the Mississippi River don’t you. Staff was being up front with that fact, not sneaky.

  9. [quote]The third comment to yesterday’s article thus completely misses the point, they argue: “And so what is the Vanguard’s alternative to the surface water project?”

    We do not have an alternative. That is not our job.[/quote]

    IMO, this says it all. If the Vanguard has no alternative, then its credibility/judgment in pushing for delays is brought into question.

    [quote]The problem right now is that the city’s plan – even if we all agreed it was necessary to do it now and at this very scope – has huge flaws that have not been publicly vetted in any meaningful way.

    Stephen Souza wants to complain about the misinformation coming out about the water project, well fix your darn city communications system that we have been complaining about for five years.[/quote]

    1) All large projects have kinks that have to be worked out as the project moves along. That does not obviate the need for the project, or the necessity of collecting funding for that project.
    2) The Vanguard concedes and it has been shown the city has reached out to the public and provided the necessary information for the public to make an informed decision.
    3) Whether or not the city communication system needs fixing is a red herring. In the case of the surface water project, the information was there for all to see and hear. There have been no less than 5 community forums on the subject, so that even if a person failed to even read the newspaper, they could have gotten all their questions answered. Seniors could even stop by the Davis Senior Center and gotten help to get on computers there to use the water rate calculator and to gain access to all the documentation they wanted on the subject from the city’s website.

    [quote]If you want to ram stuff through during Christmas and then put forth a half-baked Prop 218 process, then you are going to get angry people.[/quote]

    I completely agree with the Vanguard and Steve Hayes’ assessment that the Christmas incident was a debacle of huge magnitude. I will not defend that. However the Prop 218 process was statutorily required, very transparent, and went beyond what was legally required. Because renters were not included in the Prop 218 notice, and because it is part of the democratic process, I have no problem with the referendum process.

  10. So that everyone is clear, my objection above is with the unfounded name calling.

    Do I think there are flaws in the process and the rate structure as adopted? Yes, I do. But the personal demonizing of individuals that has become a central theme of the discussions (on both sides) is at best counterproductive.

  11. Matt, you yourself stated 2 days ago when talking about the rate hikes and conservation savings:

    “With that said, was it hard to understand for lay people like you and me? Absolutely.”

    I think that’s the definition of ‘Obfuscate’.

  12. [quote]So when Ms. Roberts Musser posts, “the water rate increases are based on consumption – the more you consume, the more you pay. That seems perfectly equitable to me…”

    At the base point that makes sense, if I use more water, I should have to pay more. Now whether I should pay at a higher rate is at least subject for debate.

    The problem that I see is that a single person who owns a home has fewer fixed water uses.[/quote]

    I think the basic assumption here that a single person who owns a home has fewer fixed water uses is flawed. Whether a family is small or large, the largest part of the water usage is irrigation, and is the same for either size family. But more importantly, a large family can choose to remove a lawn and substitute drought tolerant plants and a drip irrigation system to save on water consumption. Meanwhile, many businesses may not be able to conserve water, and homeowners who can afford it will not conserve. That makes it all the better for those who do conserve, whether they are from small or large families. Water conservation, according to the 2 UCD experts, should also save costs on the wastewater treatment side, which will benefit both large or small families.

    [quote]I do not have an alternative to the surface water project. Maybe we do not need one. Maybe all we need to do is fix this one.[/quote]

    If the Vanguard does not have any alternative to the surface water project, then the argument that “maybe we do not need one”; “maybe all we need to do is fix this one” appears very weak and not particularly defensible.

  13. [quote]The city has a forty year permit, and even Ken Landau told the CWA it would be unusual and remarkable if not completely unprecedented for the city to lose that permit.[/quote]

    First of all, this is not my recollection of what Ken Landau said. I would have to actually review the tape and make a transcript, to state exactly what was explicitly said. Secondly, this is a new day and a new dawn. From everything I have been reading, water rights and transfers are going to be subject to an ever changing landscape on the front lines of water use. Nothing is certain, which is what I remember Ken Landau saying. He indicated water is going to become a very dear commodity, and any municipality that chooses to sleep on their water rights may find themselves out of luck at some point down the road. I don’t particularly want to gamble that things will stay static in terms of water rights…

    [quote]There is no perfect solution, but as the we step back and realize, whether this referendum goes forward or not, we will have water and we are not in crisis – at that point, perhaps cooler heads can prevail and we can get off this trajectory of insane rhetoric fueled at the bottom line by the PR consultants originally hired by a water consultant with the financial interest in making this project happen.[/quote]

    Correct, there is no perfect solution – but that does not obviate the need for the surface water project one iota. The Vanguard has offered no alternatives, except a vague non-answer of “maybe we could just leave everything as is”. To my way of thinking, that is nothing more than acting like an ostrich, and putting one’s head in the sand, ignoring the very real dangers of delaying this surface water project. It does not address a single one of the very real issues the city is faced with: the dangers of non-compliance, subsidence.

  14. davisite2 said . . .

    “As he put it, the wells still and for the time being we will be okay no matter what the people of Davis decide to do. Now whether we will be okay for two years or 52 years, we do not really know.’

    [quote]This candid and true statement from our current Dept of Public Works director is remarkable in its contrast to the obfuscation and “stonewalling” that was the served up to the Davis voters by the previous director, Mr. Weir. [b]The last part of this statement, ‘we do not really know” is a true statement and outrageous![/b] The deliberate decision by the previous Council Majority in collusion with Mr. Weir, to NOT FIND OUT the answer to this question can be seen as a “breach of the public trust”, an inexcusable offense that can warrant resignation,voter recall and firing.[/quote]

    d2, as I have dug into the issues associated with this community challenge, one thing has become completely clear . . . there is no way to KNOW how long we will be okay with our well water because 1) the EPA is regularly changing the compliance guidelines for water and wastewater components, 2) the State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) issues permits for discrete periods of time and we have no way of [u]knowing[/u] how they will promulgate the EPA guidelines in Davis’ next permit, 3) events such as subsidence don’t come in orderly timing, they happen when they happen, and in the case of Well 18 cause the abandonment of the well, and 4) the legal issues about the City having a contract with UC Davis that forces the City to get UCD’s express written permission to drill a deep aquifer well.

    In my opinion, all of those four major factors and a host of other minor factors make KNOWING if we are okay impossible. Therefore, embarking on a quest to KNOW is tilting at windmills.

  15. rusty49 said . . .

    [i]”Matt, you yourself stated 2 days ago when talking about the rate hikes and conservation savings:

    “With that said, was it hard to understand for lay people like you and me? Absolutely.”

    I think that’s the definition of ‘Obfuscate’.”[/i]

    Rusty, you need to go look at the definition of obfuscate, which is “1) Render obscure, unclear, or unintelligible. 2) Bewilder (someone)”

    The statement “These estimated monthly water bill impacts assume an overall 20% reduction in single family residential water consumption over the five-year period. ” is neither obscure nor unclear nor unintelligible, and if a person actually takes the time to read it, does not bewilder.

    The statement “Customers with below average water use now will experience lower-than-average monthly water bill impacts, while customers with above average water use would see higher than average monthly water bill impacts. The individual water bill impact will vary depending on a customer’s current water use and their future conservation efforts during the five year period.” is neither obscure nor unclear nor unintelligible, and if a person actually takes the time to read it, does not bewilder.

  16. “In my opinion, all of those four major factors and a host of other minor factors make KNOWING if we are okay impossible. Therefore, embarking on a quest to KNOW is tilting at windmills.”

    Matt: changing regulations and standards are not what I am referring to. Documents referenced by Don Shor state that NO studies have been done of the recharge capacities(and I am assuming this takes in total capacity studies) of Yolo aquifers. Without being immediately challenged by referencing an unidentified UCD expert, he is reported to have offered the opinion that investigation of the deep aquifers can offer very good information as to the amount of water that they are holding and, even without significant natural recharging, the time frame in which they could continue to supply Davis with water before significant “problems” COULD appear.

  17. To Rusty49: What part of this did you not understand? What part do you consider obfuscation?
    [quote]”Overall revenues requirements are projected to increase by 100% over the five-year period, with the average single-family residential customer experiencing an increase in their monthly cost of water from $34.75 to $77.18 in Year 5. These estimated monthly water bill impacts assume an overall 20% reduction in single family residential water consumption over the five-year period. Customers with below average water use now will experience lower-than-average monthly water bill impacts, while customers with above average water use would see higher than average monthly water bill impacts. The individual water bill impact will vary depending on a customer’s current water use and their future conservation efforts during the five year period.” [/quote]

    To the larger point, that the need for the surface water project is difficult to understand, I would agree. I have been studying this project for quite some time, I am an attorney used to reading obscure legal documents, and I FIND THE SURFACE WATER PROJECT DIFFICULT TO UNDERSTAND. I am not an engineer or water quality expert. But that does not mean the city staff necessarily hid/obfuscated anything.

    I disagree with a previous comment that former Public Works Director Bob Weir was somehow less than transparent. Bob Weir came to the Davis Senior Citizens Commission UPON OUR REQUEST, and did his level best to explain the surface water project many times. He was very candid in expressing his concern that the federal gov’t had never done a cost/benefit analysis on the new water quality standards set to take effect in 2017. I truly believe he was proposing a project that he thought was in the best interests of Davis.

    I myself have been skeptical of the surface water project from its inception for various reasons. I still have doubts, and I think I always will. What began turning my thinking, ironically, were the two UCD experts Council member Sue Greenwald insisted be brought into the debate. These two experts insisted the surface water project be done first and foremost, to save money on the wastewater treatment side. There explanation seemed eminently reasonable to me, and they had no dog in the fight, which was crucial IMO.

    I can understand anyone’s doubts about this project. It is huge, it is expensive, it has been riddled with imperfections, which is a normal part of a big project like this. But at the end of the day, you have to weigh the risks/benefits/costs over time. IMO, the greater risk will be to delay – it will be more costly in the long run. Am I concerned about various issues: the actual contract language, the DBO process, the rate structure? You bet! That is why the citizen oversight committee is crucial.

    But I don’t think some of the hysterical rhetoric/accusations spewed by the opposition had been fair or helpful in the discussion. It has obfuscated the very real issues. For instance, stating that staff has somehow lied/obfuscated in regard to the rate increases is just not true. It muddies the very real issue as to whether the rate structure needs to be tweaked. But to use the argument that the rate structure may need to be tweaked to somehow come to the fallacious conclusion we don’t need the surface water project is misleading the public and irresponsible.

    Let’s keep the discussion above board, and on the real issues, without the demonizing…

  18. Although I am leaning in favor of the water project, I agree that the City Council obfuscated the increase.

    In fact, if a private company did this they would likely be subject to lawsuits for misleading advertising.

    I get the feeling that in combination with all the other rising rates and fees, our local government structure is simply unsustainable. The federal government can inflate its way out of its obligations but local governments seem to be heading for a cliff. If you agree with that, then the strategy for what we should do is somewhat different. For example, perhaps we should borrow heavily now, as Elaine suggests, while money is cheap, on the expectation that inflation or default will mitigate the cost of repayment.

  19. ERM: send me an email at michael@mikeharringtonlaw.com, and I will send you the minutes from the two September meetings.

    The ordinance does not conform to the minutes of what was voted on. The percentage increase is far higher than the 70% calculation from the Finance Director.

    Nothing from the City adds up.

    Bob Dunning reported in his column this week that the numbers don’t add up.

    Listen, face up to something: if this referendum qualifies, most likely there will be a 7 month exchange of information, and the voters will decide.

    And it won’t be decided by the gory detail that you and others here keep sifting out of arcane staff reports.

    It will be decided by things like: we are not going to give away our water system to the likes of indicted United Water; we are not going to allow Mr. Marbles and his colleagues on the Woodland City Council to decide our rates via the JPA; we are not going to let this fiscal windfall to Yost and Associates and their $700/hour attorneys bankrupt our city.

    So go on, keep spewing gory detail from the depths of documents created by the same people who recommended United Water to us; at this point, no one is listening anymore.

  20. davisite2 said . . .

    [i]Matt: changing regulations and standards are not what I am referring to. Documents referenced by Don Shor state that NO studies have been done of the recharge capacities(and I am assuming this takes in total capacity studies) of Yolo aquifers. Without being immediately challenged by referencing an unidentified UCD expert, he is reported to have offered the opinion that investigation of the deep aquifers can offer very good information as to the amount of water that they are holding and, even without significant natural recharging, the time frame in which they could continue to supply Davis with water before significant “problems” COULD appear.”[/i]
    d2, I will defer to Don to address your statement above.

    However, if the City is legally barred from drilling wells into the deep aquifer, all the studies in the world about the aquifer’s capacity will be moot. I am working hard to get a copy of the legal agreement so that we can understand just how much of a risk factor a UC Davis denial of access might be.

  21. Matt: when you have a collection of the “hot” documents, please bring them in and scan them on my high-speed scanner.

    Everyone: we need a community repository of the hot documents. This has to be separate from the City’s web site.

  22. Rich: thanks for posting yesterdy from the 2004 candidates position papers on water. All I can say is: I was clear; my position today is the same as those comments. The Davis water conservation program has been abysmal; there is little or no factual support justifying surface water; the city should try to live within its means as much as possible.

  23. “Bob Weir came to the Davis Senior Citizens Commission UPON OUR REQUEST, and did his level best to explain the surface water project many times.”

    I am sure that Mr. Weir offered a presentation to the Commission that was well crafted and not full of obvious “holes” I would guess that it was largely unchallenged by those in attendance who were without any real knowledge(you acknowledged that the project was very difficult to understand). This is a far cry from having to respond, in public, at open Council Meeting to the probing questions of Councilperson Greenwald. Anyone who witnessed his public response to Councilperson Greeenwald’s attempts to question Mr. Weir on his presentations as well as the attempts of the Council Majority on the dais to silence her public questioning, IMO, could not come to any other conclusion than that was deliberate obfuscation, “stonewalling” and collusion.

  24. [quote]I am sure that Mr. Weir offered a presentation to the Commission that was well crafted and not full of obvious “holes” I would guess that it was largely unchallenged by those in attendance who were without any real knowledge(you acknowledged that the project was very difficult to understand). [/quote]

    I disagree that Mr. Weir’s explanations went unchallenged. Believe me, the Commission asked lots of hard questions, and have continued to do so. Steve Hayes is on our commission (altho was not on at the time Mr. Weir visited, and has repeatedly made his concerns about the Conaway Ranch deal known. However SUE GREENWALD HAS ALWAYS BEEN THE CITY COUNCIL LIASON TO OUR COMMISSION AND WAS ABLE TO ASK ALL THE QUESTIONS SHE WANTED OF MR. WEIR.

  25. DV: your article is brilliant. Thank goodness you went to those water meetings in 2007 to 2009. You are correct: the project just “morphed” into the current one, bit by bit, mostly behind closed doors and certainly out of the public’s active view. I feel sorry for those cities that United Water and its cronies worm their way into, quietly, just like they tried to do here. Davis voters will speak, and they will save us.

  26. [quote]And while Ms. Roberts Musser would argue, “Construction/finance costs for the project are probably cheapest right now because the costs of lending are at record lows; as the economy improves, these costs are likely to increase.”[/quote]The interest rate spread between municipal bonds and taxable bonds is very unfavorable to us now.

  27. [quote]As Bob Clarke put it, the wells are still okay and for the time being we will be okay, no matter what the people of Davis decide to do. Now, whether we will be okay for two years or 52 years, we do not really know.–[b]David Greenwald[/b][/quote]The University’s leading groundwater expert said that our aquifers are replenishing and that any quality degradation would be likely to occur over “decades to centuries”. Even then, the water quality degradation would largely mean a little more salinity and minerals for the most part. But the time frame for that is decades to centuries.

    We will be “okay” in five years or twenty years. We have far greater risks from other delayed expenditures in town, such as police understaffing, than we would have from a phased approach to building our new water/wastewater infrastructure.

  28. @Matt Williams: The city won’t be legally barred from digging into the deep aquifer. Even with the surface water project, we are planning on digging deeper wells.

  29. [b]E. Roberts Musser:[/b]

    We are not going to lose our 40 year Sacramento River Water rights permit if we work with the WRCB, as I have proposed. It would be highly unusual to lose it even if we didn’t work with the WRCB, which I am not proposing.

  30. There are arguments in favor of proceeding with the project as planned, but they are not the arguments that I have been reading above. There is an awful of misinformation floating out there, such as the assertions that I have tried to answer above.

  31. Per Rich Rifkin ([url]http://lexicondaily.blogspot.com/2011/10/what-water-experts-say.html[/url])

    By email, I asked Professor of Hydrogeology Graham Fogg if the deep aquifer was sustainable:

    “This is poorly understood because of
    (a) the unknown future changes in groundwater quality due to downward movement of poor quality groundwater from agricultural and urban sources (Davis is not unique in this regard),
    (b) the unknown effects of increased pumping by the City in the so-called deep aquifer, from which UCD already withdraws drinking water, and
    (c) the unknown (to me at least) future demands for water in Davis when one considers growth and possible conservation measures. Of course, even if the groundwater quality continues to degrade, there is always the option of treating the groundwater to remove dissolved substances, much like we do routinely with surface water; but this costs.”

    How many years will the deep aquifer last?

    “It’s best to think of it as an “aquifer system” rather than an aquifer, because most of it consists of a complex network of aquifer materials (sands and gravels) and non-aquifer materials (silts and clays), and the latter are by far most prevalent. The groundwater levels appear to be recovering more or less fully every year following the dry season, indicating it is not yet in overdraft with respect to water quantity. In most any city where groundwater is the sole source of drinking water and landscape water, however, it is possible for demand to grow to the point that groundwater overdraft occurs. In that case, the aquifer system would not dry up and blow away, but there would be more severe restrictions on water use, like vastly reducing landscape watering, which is a large but non-essential part of the water demand. (I realize, it’s an uphill battle in N. CA to get people more accustomed to lack of green grass, but since landscape watering in this part of the world is the largest part of the urban water budget, this issue will be receiving more and more attention.)
    (end quote)
    ———
    If we have to take a number of wells out of production from the intermediate aquifer and try to go to the deep aquifer, that will be a large (and quantifiable) increase in demand, in conflict with UC Davis which overlies that aquifer.

  32. [quote][i]”…perhaps cooler heads can prevail and we can get off this trajectory of insane rhetoric fueled at the bottom line by the PR consultants originally hired by a water consultant with the financial interest in making this project happen.”[/i][/quote]1. What “insane rhetoric”? Please specify.

    2. How has the “insane rhetoric” been “fueled at the bottom line by…PR consultants.”

    3. To what specific PR consultants are you referring?

    4. What “water consultant with the financial interest in making this project happen” had hired the PR consultants?

    5. What’s the implied unsavory connection between the water consultant and the PR consultants?

    This concluding paragraph should be sent to Guinness. It certainly has at least a state-level record of unsupported innuendo packed into it. The half-sentence raises more questions for me than has any similar snippet I’ve read in the [u]Vanguard[/u].

    I’m left to wonder whether you’ve reported and/or sourced any of these charges during the past three weeks of extensive coverage. I thought I was keeping up. Did I miss [s]something?[/s] a lot?

  33. Sue: UC Davis currently pumps 2300 acre-feet per year from the deep aquifer. The proposal for Solano Water involved increasing their pumping up to 5300 acre-feet per year for ten years, with some sale back to the City of Davis as they switch to Solano water for potable use (690 acre-feet per year would be sold to the city until the Sac River project comes on line).
    Because of the possible impact on the deep aquifer, identified in the EIRs done for the LRDP (plan) for the campus in 2003, the surface water from Solano was brought in to mitigate potential harm to the aquifer from this increased pumping.

    City of Davis total pumping as of 2010 is 15531 acre-feet per year from 20 wells.
    We learn from Matt Williams that up to 12 of them are likely to go off-line and will need to be replaced, and the intent is to go to the deep aquifer. Just rounding, that means about half of the city water will go from intermediate to deep aquifer.
    That is just under 8000 acre-feet per year the City would be pumping from the deep aquifer. No, I don’t know the exact production rates of the individual wells. It doesn’t really matter. We are talking about a 100% or greater increase in demand on the deep aquifer.
    It is known that wells dug by the city into that aquifer will cause a drop in the water level in UC Davis wells.
    It is almost a certainty that doubling or tripling the pumping from that aquifer would have adverse impacts.
    How do you propose that the City of Davis mitigate the potential impact of this additional pumping on the deep aquifer in the absence of a surface supply of water?

    If the deep aquifer option (which would certainly need an EIR and mitigation plan) is not feasible, then the City of Davis will continue pumping saltier water from the intermediate aquifer. The known rate of subsidence from the combined Davis and Woodland pumping ranges around an inch per year. You can’t mitigate subsidence once it occurs.

  34. Editor: This is a post concerning events that are specific, and beneficial, to the entire commmunity.

    Fact: Referendum petitions will be filed with the City Clerk sometime Monday, more or less the middle of the day. 23 Russell Blvd.

    Fact: the community is invited to attend. That includes all DV readers and bloggers.

    Fact: more details late in the weekend.

    Fact: media are invited.

  35. Sue Greenwald said . . .

    [i]”@Matt Williams: The city won’t be legally barred from digging into the deep aquifer. Even with the surface water project, we are planning on digging deeper wells.”[/i]

    Sue, you say that with great authority. What authority does the City have that supports your position?

  36. Don Shor said . . .

    [i]”We learn from Matt Williams that up to 12 of them are likely to go off-line and will need to be replaced, and the intent is to go to the deep aquifer. Just rounding, that means about half of the city water will go from intermediate to deep aquifer.”[/i]

    Don, that is a bit of an overstatement of what I said. What I said was that 12 of the existing City wells have Selenium levels that range from more than double the 4.4 permit threshold to as high as 9-times that threshold. It is very logical to conclude that these 12 wells will be retired and their production replaced, but that is a decision that is yet to be made.

    For those people who doubt the importance and/or impact of Selenium control please read this September 16, 2011 article in the San Jose Mercury [url]http://www.mercurynews.com/science/ci_18903921[/url].

    The upshot of the Selenium problem is that significantly lower (by a factor of 10) compliance levels are being discussed as a part of the Bay-Delta plan, and if those levels are adopted by the SWRCB all of Davis’ wells will be out of compliance . . . including all the deep aquifer wells.

  37. If you are at all interested in the quality of surface water in the Sacramento River in the vicinity of the proposed Woodland/Davis SWP intake, there is a very comprehensive reference titled, [i]Sacramento River Watershed Sanitary Survey, 2010 Update[/i]. You can access it on the city of West Sacramento website, I just can’t paste the URL because it is truncated in Google. This is the third update. There’s one in 2006 and another in 2001. Each update focuses on certain constituents. The overall objective of the 2010 Update is to:[quote][i]assess the source water quality of the Sacramento River to ensure the ability of the existing water treatment plants in the vicinity of the Sacramento metropolitan area to continue to provide their customers with drinking water that meets all drinking water standards. This 2010 Update also presents information on the planned diversions for the respective participating agencies to use in selecting and planning treatment facilities.[/i][/quote]

  38. I’m not a wastewater engineer, but I would think that selenium concentration at the wellhead does not equate directly to selenium concentration in the effluent discharges from the WWTP. There is probably a certain amount of selenium that is taken up in the WWTP process, so the actual discharge concentration is less. I checked the State Water Board’s website for WWTP monitoring reports (CIWQS), and it looks like Davis WWTP discharge into Willow Slough for at least the months of 2011 that have been uploaded were all below 2 ppb.

    When/if discharge limits for selenium are reduced by the State/EPA, Davis could opt for land disposal (reuse) of the effluent. Discharge into surface water and treatment aren’t the only options. Selenium is an essential nutrient, one that is commonly added to livestock feed (selenium at higher concentrations is a toxicant especially in aquatic ecosystems). The Panoche Drainage District (just south of the old Kesterson Reservoir) has been reusing drainage water for years on salt tolerant crops that include alfalfa and Jose tall wheatgrass. They actually mow those forage crops, bale it and sell it to local feedlots. The quality of the drainage water used to irrigate these crops is approximately 3,500 mg/L total dissolved solids and over 200 ppb selenium, which is significantly higher (I think) than anything that would come out of the Davis WWTP. I would think that cropland reuse of Davis WWTP effluent could be a cost effective method to reduce our effluent discharges of salt, boron and selenium.

  39. Uh oh, there is trouble in Paradise.

    Anyone check out lately the web site of the Clean Water Agency?

    http://www.wdcwa.com/board/agendas/

    They had a Board meeting set for yesterday, and it was mysteriously, and suddenly, cancelled. Someone in Woodland must have gotten ahold of the Davis Enterprise.

    They also set a special meeting in November, details TBA. I wonder why?

    They must be reading the media reports that a referendum to repeal the rate hikes is about to be turned in on Monday. A valid referendum will freeze the hikes. They can still spend the money in the system, but they cannot sell those big bonds to build the system.

    Next concern I have: the CC should move to pass a resolution asking the JPA to halt the expenditures of any more money on the surface water plant, effective immediately, until after the resolution of the referendum, June 2012.

  40. @ Matt:
    11 of the wells are 30 years or older. Expected lifespan of a well is 30 – 50 years.
    [img]http://davismerchants.org/water/DavisWellInfo.png[/img]

  41. eastdavis said . . .

    [i]”I’m not a wastewater engineer, but I would think that selenium concentration at the wellhead does not equate directly to selenium concentration in the effluent discharges from the WWTP. There is probably a certain amount of selenium that is taken up in the WWTP process, so the actual discharge concentration is less. I checked the State Water Board’s website for WWTP monitoring reports (CIWQS), and it looks like Davis WWTP discharge into Willow Slough for at least the months of 2011 that have been uploaded were all below 2 ppb.”[/i]

    Excellent point eastdavis, and it can be seen as a good news/bad news situation. The settling ponds at the WWTP are indeed reducing the selenium levels from the point where the waste water enters the plant to the point where the water is discharged into Willow Slough. However, what that means is that the settling ponds are building up selenium levels to higher and higher toxic levels. Any bird that lands in one of those elevated level ponds is being exposed to serious health risk. This link [url]http://www.google.com/search?q=selenium+birds+”epa”&hl=en&num=10&lr=&ft=i&cr=&safe=images&tbs=[/url] will take you to an EPA/USGS Selenium modeling document, [i]”Ecosystem-Scale Selenium Modeling in Support of Fish and Wildlife Criteria Development for the San Francisco Bay-Delta Estuary, California”[/i].

  42. [b]Mike:[/b] [i]”Rich: thanks for posting yesterdy from the 2004 candidates position papers on water. All I can say is: I was clear; my position today is the same as those comments.”[/i]

    You’re welcome, Mike. I agree that your position is today what it was then.

    I did not include it, but you also had a strong endorsement on that forum of a Measure J referendum on Covell Village, and, if I recall correctly, you said [i]any major change in our city should be put to a vote of the people[/i], which is right in line with your advocacy for the water works referendum.

    I generally agree with the notion, or in this respect your notion, that for major changes in our town’s character or policies which will substantially affect the wallets of large numbers of people, a decision backed by or rejected by the majority of citizens makes it more legitimate.

    I was on the losing side on Covell Village. But I do think it was the type of thing we should vote on. It was not all that complicated. It would have changed the nature of Davis. If built, it would have had an impact on a large swath of Davis and Davisites.

    That said, I generally don’t favor direct democracy. It’s not that I think people are too dumb to decide many issues: what I doubt is whether, on very complicated referendums, most people will take the time to carefully examine the technical aspects of the question and fully digest what a vote one way or the other will result in for them and for the community.

    This will likely please you–if I am right–but my sense is that most voters, who are very busy, will vote No on most questions that they don’t have the time to really investigate. Even if the status quo is screwed up, they will stick with what they know, rather than taking a chance on something they don’t fully understand. That tendency is doubled if they are told the position of change will cost them money.

    But I don’t think that approach is wise. I think, in many cases, it leads to a suboptimal outcome.

    Let me give an example: Proposition 76 of 2005 ([url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_76_(2005)[/url]). It was a complex proposal which promised to do a number of things with regard to the budget. As I understood it, it would have slowed down the state’s spending during the boom. And by doing so, it we would have given us a much softer cushion once the inevitable bust came.

    I think as a general idea, most people strongly agree with that. But Prop 76 was voted down overwhelmingly. The people made the wrong choice. And our state has been paying dearly for it ever since. Yet I would bet almost all of the people who voted no on 76 don’t remember it at all and don’t blame themselves for what has come since.

    I think the voters of 2005 turned down Prop 76 mostly because it was so complicated* (and partly because the teachers unions, which poured tens of millions of dollars into a campaign to defeat it, were highly successful in confusing those voters who did not have the time or energy to ferret out all of the CTA’s rampant lies).

    If it were up to me, we would get rid of all state propositions, including votes on tax rates and bonds. I prefer to hold elected officials accountable for deciding those major questions.

    My view is slightly different at the local level, because local measures are usually pretty straight forward. But I am not certain that the questions surrounding the surface water project are all that clear. I don’t think it is obvious what really is going to happen if this water works is voted down.

    *Here are some of the complicated facets that Prop 76 promised: “limit state spending to prior year’s level plus three previous years’ average revenue growth; change state minimum school funding requirements(Proposition 98); eliminate repayment requirement when minimum funding suspended; exclude appropriations above the minimum from schools’ funding base; direct excess General Fund revenues, currently directed to schools/tax relief, to budget reserve, specified construction, debt repayment; permit Governor, under specified circumstances, to reduce appropriations of Governor’s choosing, including employee compensation/state contracts; continue prior year appropriations if state budget delayed; prohibits state special funds borrowing; and require payment of local government mandates.”

  43. Don, regarding the chart you posted at 3:04 pm — a UC Davis expert told me that the deep aquifer was from 800 to 1,000 feet deep. Looking at your chart, he must have been mistaken. We seem to have no wells in that range, but 4 which are from 1,491′ to 1,892′ deep.

  44. [quote]We will be “okay” in five years or twenty years. [/quote]

    Which is it, 5 years or 20 years? There is a big difference!

    [quote]We are not going to lose our 40 year Sacramento River Water rights permit if we work with the WRCB, as I have proposed. It would be highly unusual to lose it even if we didn’t work with the WRCB, which I am not proposing.[/quote]

    There is a big assumption here that the SWRCB will see things your way, but that is not what they have said…

    [quote]There are arguments in favor of proceeding with the project as planned, but they are not the arguments that I have been reading above. There is an awful of misinformation floating out there, such as the assertions that I have tried to answer above.[/quote]

    So what are the arguments in favor, as YOU see them, that are so different from everyone else’s?

  45. “There is a big assumption here that the SWRCB will see things your way, but that is not what they have said…”

    It is actually not a big assumption. First of all, you can make the assumption based on history. Even ken landau argued it would be unusual. Second, Davis still has origin of water rights and they would have the right to re-apply under those and in winter months place in line wouldn’t matter because of the nature of winter water use being unlimited anyway and because the city has contracted with ATK over summer water rates, there is nothing the state could do. Put that all together and it’s really not a big assumption.

  46. From the WDCWA minutes of 9-29-11:

    [quote]Mr. Landau cautioned the Board that if they didn’t continue moving forward with the project, its newly acquired water rights from the SWRCB could be in jeopardy.[/quote]

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