By Alan Pryor
Super sleuth Bob Dunning is at it again. His latest reporting uncovered the nefarious scheme by the City to unfairly give some Davis residents well water for a small part of a summer day.
Bob implies it was his own that uncovered this hidden conspiracy that denies giving every single resident in the City 100% surface water for every drop that comes from their faucets during the summer months.
Unfortunately, as is the case of much of Bob writings, his news is neither new nor factual but a simple rehashing of an old.
So what is the truth about this dastardly hidden agendaby the City to defraud its residents? It started about two years ago when I wrote a letter to City Staff that questioned the fairness of the planned mixing of surface and intermediate aquifer well water during the summer.
At that time I was only concerned about some resident (well, OK, me) unfairly getting a high proportion of intermediate aquifer well water for extended periods during the summer months.
I have long been on record as reporting the very poor quality of the intermediate aquifer well water in Davis and I did not want to have to pay my fair share of the surface water project and receive a disproportionate share of intermediate aquifer well water after the changeover.
The letter was only intended for internal use by City Staff but was somehow leaked to David Greenwald of the Vanguard who ran a full story on it in the Vanguard on March 23, 2011 – nearly six months before the September 6, 2011 water vote.
The City engineers were actually already on the problem, though, and have since finalized their city-wide surface water distribution system plans and well water mixing strategy and my concerns have been completely alleviated.
Firstly, the final decision was made by the City to completely eliminate the use of all intermediate aquifer water and rely solely on deep well water as backup during the summer months.
The water quality of the deep water wells is unquestionably superior to the intermediate aquifer in all respects – lower nitrates, lower selenium, lower hexavalent chromium, lower hardness, and lower total salinity. It is, in fact, very good quality water and I would be perfectly happy to get deep well water year round if I thought that it could be accomplished in a sustainable manner.
I don’t think there is a qualified water quality expert in town who would disagree and I doubt any Davis resident would even notice any taste or other differences between deep well water and river water when it starts to flow through our pipes when the change-over occurs in 2016.
Unfortunately, however, as every reputable hydrogeology expert has told us, the deep aquifer is a finite resource and providing 100% of the City’s water needs 100% of the time would result in the eventual depletion and/or contamination over time. So we have to go to the river for the surface water or risk leaving Davis high and dry in some decades to come.
Secondly, the City has since announced their new main distribution system for carrying treated surface water throughout the City. It is well designed plan with new or enlarged mains carrying the surface water to all parts of the City including west Davis, east Davis, south Davis, and the central part of the city.
After the switchover, will some residents get more deep well water than surface water during some times of the days during a few summer months?…of course they will! City Staff has been completely forthright about this for more than two years. They have always honestly acknowledged that it is a physical impossibility to have 100% perfect mixing short of otherwise putting in massive new mixing tanks strewn throughout the City. There is no way to avoid this.
But the point is that the well water Davis residents will get intermittently during the summer will be very high quality deep aquifer water and they will not notice any difference in taste, effects on plants, or hardness forming on their faucet outlets. And they can drink it without fear of accumulation of unknown toxins which cannot be said now with the current use of our questionable intermediate aquifer water.
In summary, as long as the City gets rid of the lesser quality intermediate aquifer water and fairly distributes the surface water to all quarters of the City, every resident in town will get their fair share of surface water and there will be no poor quality intermediate aquifer well water going to anyone, ever.
However, once again Bob Dunning raises an issue that has been worked to death years ago and tried to turn it into a lead story which he attributes to his super sleuthing abilities. Bob should stick to his bread and butter tirades – off color jokes about the City Council and Zip Cars or using his bully pulpit to berate the NRC for daring to restrict his beloved plastic bags and his god-given right to use his smelly wood burning fireplace any time he chooses. I suggest he leave the serious science and engineering reporting to Tom Sakash who has otherwise done a superb and impartial job for the Enterprise.
Alan Pryor is a member of the Natural Resources Commission
{EDITOR’s NOTE: the Vanguard inadvertantly received an earlier draft. The author did not intend the version to reach publication. He ackowledged it was too snarky and altered some of the language. At 10:12 am, we switched the later version).
Pretty snarky , Alan.
Agreed keithvb–snarky. Not necessary to make your (important) points Alan.
{EDITOR’s NOTE: the Vanguard inadvertently received an earlier draft. The author did not intend the version to reach publication. He acknowledged it was too snarky and altered some of the language. At 10:12 am, we switched the later version).
^^ That’s my bad.
In the summer [May-Oct] we use close to 20 mgd, including what the city uses, but appears not to pay for, or even meter, al least not all of it! It is my understanding we have purchased the senior rights to about 4 mgd from Conaway, altho not all of that may be available under certain conditions. The Conaway water is thus about 20% of summer use; about 80% will come from wells. It is hard to believe that the city can replumb the system so that all of that 80% will be from the deep aquifer, and none from the intermediate aquifer which is high in nitrates and Se, as well as being harder!
At a recent meeting Mr Prior told residents of Old Willowbank that the community has only one Prop. 218 vote, and individual ratepayers do not have a vote. Not so, I told a resident who called me; check your 218 mailer which tells you how to protest. Subsequently I sent out form letters to all residents which could be signed, stapled and mailed or dropped off at the city and Civic Pool parking lot just in front of the Brady Aquatics Bldg – you do not even have to park or exit the vehicle.
From Alan’s article a year ago:
The water project involves the acquisition of two different types of Sacramento River water rights allowing for the use of the river water by the water project. One set of licenses covers junior water rights for the use of up to 45,000 acre-feet per year by the water project which is the bulk of the water expected to be drawn from the Sacramento River. This water is free to the water project and the only costs are for pumping and treatment of the water itself. The permit for the rights to this water has already been approved by the Water Board.
However, these are “junior” water rights meaning there is a limitation on their use during normal years when summer water flow is low and water is released from Federal dams to allow for required inflows into the Delta and other senior water rights uses. These limitations are known as Term 91 restrictions. Term 91 withdrawal restrictions are typically imposed during the dryer 5-6 months of the year from late spring through early fall.
The 45,000 acre-feet of water obtained under the junior water rights would normally be expected to supply more than 100% of the water needs of Woodland and Davis in normal water years if the use of such water could be spread over the entire year. Because of Term 91 restrictions, however, that cannot be done unless that withdrawn water could be stored after pumping and treatment during non-summer months for later use. Without otherwise obtaining other summer water rights, Woodland and Davis would be forced to rely solely on well water separately pumped by each city’s existing wells during the summer.
To partially cover this summer shortage, the WDCWA also signed an agreement with Conaway granting the water project “senior” water rights allowing use of up to 10,000 additional acre-feet of water per year which can be pumped from the river during summer months even when Term 91 restrictions are otherwise imposed. The term of this agreement was for 24 years after which the water project would hold the senior water rights in perpetuity.
[url]https://davisvanguard.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=5089:major-protests-to-summer-water-rights-resolved-by-conaway-&Itemid=79[/url]
keithvb:
“Pretty snarky , Alan.”
Yes, many on the Yes on I side get very snarky and go on the attack when you don’t happen to agree with their views.
Don Shor – We only get 40% of those numbers you quote! Conaway water is a small fraction of what we use in the summer! We do not have storage of the size needed to store junior rights winter water!
“Prior is wrong again”. I doubt if Dunning is. Prior says “his reporting is neither new or factual.” That last paragraph by Prior is really low and irrelevant! The earlier version was even snarkier, the Vanguard admitted!
Don Shor – We only get 40% of those numbers you quote! Conaway water is a small fraction of what we use in the summer! We do not have storage of the size needed to store junior rights winter water!
“Prior is wrong again”. I doubt if Dunning is. Prior says “his reporting is neither new or factual.” That last paragraph by Prior is really low and irrelevant! The earlier version was even snarkier, the Vanguard admitted!
Don Shor – We only get 40% of those numbers you quote! Conaway water is a small fraction of what we use in the summer! We do not have storage of the size needed to store junior rights winter water!
“Prior is wrong again”. I doubt if Dunning is. Prior says “his reporting is neither new or factual.” That last paragraph by Prior is really low and irrelevant! The earlier version was even snarkier, the Vanguard admitted!
“The letter was only intended for internal use by City Staff but was somehow leaked to David Greenwald….”
Why would you think, Alan, you should be able to operate with the city staff about a public issue on an “internal use” only basis?
Leaked or obtained by legal request, it’s good that the Vanguard is on duty to assure there are no secret dealings between municipal staffers and the city’s elite special-interest promoters.
Anyway, thanks for correcting the record about what’s happening about the concerns you originally raised. It’s interesting how a little bit of information gets used to generate a large pile of misinformation.
“To partially cover this summer shortage, the WDCWA also signed an agreement with Conaway grant…..”
“Conway”, you really mean,don’t you, Tskapolous, the mega-developer who essentially “calls the shots” as to who advances up the Democratic regional political ladder? Note: Tskapolous tried unsuccessfully,in the recent past, to use his political “muscle” to get his large tract south of the overpass and East of El Macero approved for massive residential development. Does anyone believe that this is not still his objective?
With the West Sac option, Davis would transfer its rights to the West Sac facility and would be buying water,in summer, to meet its needs. Am I incorrect in thinking that with the West Sac option, the need to purchase water from Tsakopolous would vanish and with it his “leverage” in Davis’ future decisions about peripheral development?
With the transfer to West Sac, Davis would literally have no control over Angelo Tsakopolous and his development plans, except that the Yolo County Board of Supervisors would have to approve them. He could buy water from West Sacramento.
He presently has no leverage over Davis[b] because any peripheral annexation and development has to be approved by the voters[/b], as you know.
Don… your response does not throw any light on the question I posed and your non-response leaves me to conclude that the answer is that no, Davis would not have to buy water from Tsakopolous. Your argument stating that somehow, this would remove any “control” on Tsakopolous’ development plans takes me right back to the Covell Village campaign scare tactic that proclaimed that if NO on X won, the devil-developer Gidaro would have a free hand to build whatever he wanted to on our periphery.Of course, nothing of the kind happened. The decision to build on our periphery was and still is in the hands of the Supervisors and nothing about buying water from Tskapolous changes this. Yes, the voters of Davis do have a Measure R vote but it is simplistic to think that Tsakopolous having his hand on the spigot of an important portion of Davis’ water supply does not offer opportunities for political “arm-twisting”and/or “inducements”.
I don’t understand anything you just wrote.
Don, it’s quite simple. Tskapolous did a double head fake, passed off to Gidaro who drove the lane, behind the back pass to Saylor who…oh no, had the ball stolen by davisite2 who dribbled the length of the court and slam dunked a 5,000 home development in West Davis. Score!
To paraphrase young Skywalker, “Paranoia runs strong in my family.”
PS: Yikes! This was the internal version of a less snarky public posting.
-Michael Bisch
davisite2, the simple and correct answer to your question is “[u]Yes, in the West Sac alternative Davis would need the Conaway water right water in the summer.
[/u]
The reason is very straightforward. West Sac has two water rights, one winter and one summer. They are very close to the upper limit of their summer limit right now. They simply so not have any appreciable summer water to spare.
I have re-read the posting, and I think that in the same paragraph davisite2 was
(1) accusing me of falsely using Tsakopolous’ development schemes as a threat against opposition to Measure I, and then,
(2) then, himself, using Tsakopolous’ development schemes as a threat against supporting Measure I.
Somehow Covell Village and Gidaro manage to get into nearly every discussion of this project. It’s almost the Davis version of Godwin’s Law.
The fact is that land investors like Tsakopolous take a very, very long view as they buy land, and they have multiple motives. They aren’t always interested in developing housing soon, or even at all. He can trade environmental mitigation ‘credits’, for example. And land that is bought, even without the prospect of development within a generation or more, still appreciates in value.
Much of the land along I-80 where we live is owned by investors. They have zero prospect for getting it rezoned and getting any kind of non-agricultural development on it within decades. But it still appreciates in value over the long run, because there are other investors out there who will buy it. And it still makes money by its present uses.
So the fact that Angelo Tsakopolous owns or controls Conaway Ranch has virtually no impact on Davis growth in our lifetimes. No arm-twisting, no inducements seem likely to lead to “massive residential development” on his land.
Yet somehow this was turned around to imply that I was pulling a “Gidaro” as davisite2 has been predicting.
Having had Gidero “pull a Gidero” on me and Stan Forbes in 2004, I would not put anything past these developers.
Matt… thanks for your input. I would have thought that the added cost and complexity (conduit,pump, purification, willingness of Tskapolous to sell to Davis alone) would have been a strong point against the West Sac option. Perhaps it is not the certainty that you describe since I do not recall this presented as a strong negative of the West Sac option.