Our chief concern in the past few months was that few people had learned about the city’s impending rate hikes that will triple water rates over the next five year. That problem is no more. Two Davis Enterprise articles have laid out details of the rate increases over the next five years and one of them laid out in good detail the process by which to file a Prop 218 protest.
However, even with that information, a Prop 218 protest, which requires a majority of property owners to file complaints by a certain date, seems highly unlikely.
Councilmember Stephen Souza argued that the highly mineralized underground water supplies will cause the city to fail 2016 state standards and result in fines of up to $80,000 per day.
“Our water is too salty for us to discharge into the environment,” Councilmember Souza told the Enterprise, even as he acknowledged that the city had not done as a good a job as they could have about sharing the information with the public.
“We’ve talked about it, but we’ve never engaged in full-blown public relations to really let (the public) know what the project is, what the project will do for us and how much it will cost,” Council Souza said.
Public officials continue to tell residents that they will save money as well – though they acknowledge not enough to cover their higher bills.
Mr. Souza talked about the problems of salty water on appliances and the use of water softeners.
“Not a single person will need a water softener in our community,” Mr. Souza said.
However, that may not be as true as the leaders are claiming. The Vanguard has noted that not everyone will receive the new water from the Sacramento River. Entire portions of Davis will still rely on well water. The mix of water will reduce the salt and other minerals from our discharge, but it may not impact everyone individually.
Moreover, the city leaders failed to note that the problem is not the safety of the drinking water but rather that the content violates discharge requirements that will come online by 2016.
As Councilmember Sue Greenwald noted in a response comment, the situation is not as cut and dried as Mr. Souza claims.
“Stephen Souza’s statement is NOT accurate. The City of Tracy recently won a preliminary tentative ruling overturning their TDS [Total Dissolved Solids] requirements. Part of the court’s reasoning was that the costs of complying are a factor that should be considered,” the Councilmember wrote then added, “I wish Stephen Souza would stop saying this.”
She added, “In short, we are not likely to be fined if we don’t proceed with the surface water project if we take proper administrative and legal action. The decision concerning whether Davis should proceed with the surface water project at this time should be based on other factors such as a cost/benefit analysis of the value of softer water without the mineral content and the long-term supply of our deep aquifer water.”
“Our water is not ‘scary.’ Many people don’t like the taste (I don’t have any problem with it myself), it leads to calcium build-up, etc., but it is safe and crystal clear (unlike some river water supplies),” she continued. “The sky will not fall in if we don’t proceed with this project now. People should look at the pros and cons and decide for themselves. I have been very frustrated with the scare tactics.”
What is scary are the amounts of the proposed rate hikes that will take prices into a range of $1333 per year, more than triple current rates. That will disproportionately impact lower income people and the council is now taking steps to see if they can alleviate that impact on some residents.
And while the Prop 218 requirements are likely too steep to achieve, the residents have other possibilities as well.
The Solano County Taxpayers President Earl Heal wrote the Vanguard recently to note that the City of Dixon was able to repeal the tripling of their sewer rate through a simple initiative.
“Our group has been involved and has helped cities with their Prop 218 process and placing initiatives on the ballot. It may be difficult to collect fifty percent (50%) plus one protests needed to stop the water rate increase,” Mr. Heal told the Vanguard. “But it is very easy to collect signatures of five percent (5%) of the registered voters who voted in the last gubernatorial ballot.”
In addition to the City of Dixon’s successful efforts, Rohnert Park repealed their water rate increase and the City of Rio Vista is holding a special election on June 7, 2011, to bring their water rates back to the 2006 fee structure, and a water district in Sacramento is in the process of collecting signatures for an initiative.
The Vanguard has asked for transparency in this process and at least some of the cards are being laid out on the table. Unfortunately, while people are entitled to different opinions, holding different sets of facts is a bit problematic. The scare tactic about fines is one of those issues that needs to be clarified and resolved.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
David:
Every time I read this stuff here I laugh. Many times I actually laugh out loud.
It seems that you support every single environmental cause in the world except the ones that you have to pay for.
EIR on a project that someone else will have to pay for? Absolutely. We need to know.
Protect some habitat for a critter no one has ever actually seen? No doubt. It might come back and it JUST might be the only one left on earth.
In this case it is not so much your water. It is your discharge. Woodland went to containerized green waste to clean our storm water. Woodland has been paying higher rates for several years now because we went to tertiary treatment more than five years ago.
You don’t like having to pay more for this? My suggestion to you is to call Congressman Mike Thompson and ask him to sponsor legislation to repeal the Clean Water Act and many other pieces of environmental legislation that has brought your community to this point.
This cost that you are so worried about is being paid by communities all over California to improve their water supply and deal with the environmental regulations that have been placed on the discharge from treatment facilities.
No one likes to pay more. I get that. What I find fascinating is that these costs are a foreseeable outcome from the environmental policies that you support. Maybe it is time to step back and look at a view that has more than a single piece of mail that will come once every two months to your mailbox.
Matt Rexroad
662-5184
MRexroad: “You don’t like having to pay more for this? My suggestion to you is to call Congressman Mike Thompson and ask him to sponsor legislation to repeal the Clean Water Act and many other pieces of environmental legislation that has brought your community to this point.”
I completely agree with you on this one. The U.S. Congressmen that passed the Clean Water Act back in 1972 didn’t really care just how much their legislation would effect consumers from a fiscal standpoint. They knew they would be long gone before the “fit hit the shan” so to speak from a public relations perspective. Bob Wier, the former head of Public Works, advised our Senior Citizens Commission that a cost/benefit analysis had never really been done in any meaningful way in regard to the Clean Water Act.
MRexroad: “This cost that you are so worried about is being paid by communities all over California to improve their water supply and deal with the environmental regulations that have been placed on the discharge from treatment facilities.”
I want to make a slight correction here – this is going on all across the country, at a time when local economies cannot afford to take this kind of a fiscal hit.
dmg: “She [Sue Greenwald] added, “In short, we are not likely to be fined if we don’t proceed with the surface water project if we take proper administrative and legal action. The decision concerning whether Davis should proceed with the surface water project at this time should be based on other factors such as a cost/benefit analysis of the value of softer water without the mineral content and the long-term supply of our deep aquifer water.”
“Our water is not ‘scary.’ Many people don’t like the taste (I don’t have any problem with it myself), it leads to calcium build-up, etc., but it is safe and crystal clear (unlike some river water supplies),” she continued. “The sky will not fall in if we don’t proceed with this project now. People should look at the pros and cons and decide for themselves. I have been very frustrated with the scare tactics.””
I’m not clear what City Council member Sue Greenwald is suggesting here. She has been the primary leader on the City Council to save money on this project. Is she saying that we should NOT go forward with this project? The reason I find this hesitation on her part curious, is bc the two experts from UCD she insisted investigate this problem strongly advised the city to proceed with the surface water project first and foremost and as soon as possible. Is she disagreeing with her own chosen experts? If so, why? What exactly is her position, or why the hesitation on her part?
dmg: “The Vanguard has asked for transparency in this process and at least some of the cards are being laid out on the table. Unfortunately, while people are entitled to different opinions, holding different sets of facts is a bit problematic. The scare tactic about fines is one of those issues that needs to be clarified and resolved.”
I’m not quite sure what you mean by holding a different set of facts. Could you please clarify? Are you saying you want the court decision in Tracy to be clarified?
I have followed this particular issue closely and with great interest literally for years. I have greatly appreciated City Council member Sue Greenwald’s leadership in keeping the costs of this mammoth project down. But it is not clear to me what side she comes down on; nor what is best to do from hereon. I think the major issues can be listed as follows:
The –
1) High cost of surface water project to consumers.
2) High cost of maintaining current infrastructure, which is severely eroding/crumbling.
juxtaposed against –
3) The possible loss of various mid-level and deep water aquifers, which may run out of water.
4) Meeting the new Clean Water Act standards for wastewater discharge, without incurring stiff fines that would be cost prohibitive.
If anyone else sees other issues, feel free to add to this list. Notably absent from the list is the quality of water, which I consider a non-issue. Why? The quality of the water, while not great, has satisfied our requirements for years. It is only the occurrence of the new Clean Water standards for wastewater discharge that has prompted the concern over water quality. As dmg has noted, some in Davis won’t even see the benefit of the surface water project, bc they will only receive well water. So the business about improving water quality is a red herring IMHO. As dmg said so forcefully, we need complete honesty here.
Also, it might be very helpful if we could have a link to the Tracy opinion, so we could read it for ourselves. It seems to me I read it before, when City Council member Greenwald mentioned it previously. I think I posed various questions which she never answered (that is not a criticism, just an observation). I don’t think I read the opinion quite the way Sue Greenwald did, if I remember rightly. This is a very important issue that needs to be resolved posthaste…
Matt Rexroad: [i]”these costs are a foreseeable outcome from the environmental policies”[/i]
Not only foreseeable, but these costs are continually analyzed and reported.
[url]http://water.epa.gov/scitech/datait/databases/cwns/2008reportdata.cfm[/url]
Elaine and Matt Rexroad,
I suggest that you read the court’s recent preliminary ruling on the lawsuit brought by the City of Tracy.
As I said, this is a project with pros (long-term water supply and subsidence control and softer water which is easier on appliances and landscaping) and cons (back-breaking costs to low and moderate income residents which could also put at risk the renewal of our city and and school district taxes). Given the city and school district budget situation, postponing this project five or ten years is something to consider, as is studying our deep water aquifer much more thoroughly.
Elaine, I go to the leading experts in wastewater treatment plant design for advice on designing wastewater treatment plants, and I go to the people most knowledgeable about the changing regulatory environment to learn about what is on the regulatory horizon.
I am speaking here from a City of Davis perspective. I have heard that Woodland has worse water quality issues than does Davis. If this is true, I can understand Matt Rexroad’s position.
[i]That will disproportionately impact lower income people and the council is now taking steps to see if they can alleviate that impact on some residents.[/i]
What this means that the rest will pay even more to subsidize ….
Max Rexroad’s post was a refreshing respite from the usual voices telling me the water project is unneeded/too expensive and resonated as pragmatic and honest. Is he just pulling our chain for some hidden agenda? Doesn’t feel like it.
The water is NOT drinkable in my part of town if you have human taste buds. Hard to believe Woodland’s water could be any worse than the 900 ppm TDS where I live.
Sue G lists some benefits of this project. What is the value, in dollars, of those benefits? Subsidence, water softening costs and negative water quality impacts of softening, landscaping and appliance impacts can be valued. These need to be valued in dollars to have a meaningful discussion.
When I talked to an associate from the central coast and another who lives in southern California, they told me that they wish they only had to pay $1,300 a year for water. How mad or sad should we be, really?
[quote]That will disproportionately impact lower income people and the council is now taking steps to see if they can alleviate that impact on some residents.
What this means that the rest will pay even more to subsidize …. [/quote]
First quote, is in my opinion, an opinion… if a low income person has a car, and a rich person has the same car, can we say that the cost of gas is disproportional?
Second quote… sort of… the water rate payers cannot, as I understand it, be forced to subsidize other users… the difference would likely have to come from the General Fund.
Without bringing surface water to Davis, the land now held by developers on Davis’ periphery cannot be developed in any significant fashion. The value of the property that they are now holding rises astronomically since CA law prohibits new development without identification of the water resources necessary. How will this added value to their land holdings be drawn upon to pay for this project that will bring them this economic windfall?
To Sue Greenwald: So I assume what you are saying is that you disagree with the two experts that you yourself brought into the discussion. You do not agree with them that this surface water project needs to be done immediately? Instead you favor putting the project off for 10 to 15 years based on the Tracy decision? I don’t want to put words in your mouth, so please correct me if I have not captured your view of things.
I have glanced at the Tracy decision, and I don’t see that it says anything that would necessarily help the city of Davis. What it says is that the State Water Board did not conduct the required analysis of Tracy’s wastewater discharge, including a cost analysis. But I do not believe the decision stands for the proposition that Tracy somehow “won” and will not have to abide by the Clean Water Act standards of 1972. It only directs the State Water Board to do a more thorough analysis than it did. Please correct me if I am not reading the decision properly…
You can read the decision at the following link:
http://www.waterboards.ca.gov/waterrights/water_issues/programs/bay_delta/bay_delta_plan/water_quality_control_planning/cmmnts052311/debbie_webster.pdf
Drat, the link got cut off. Let me try again:
http://www.waterboards.ca.gov/waterrights/water_issues/programs/bay_delta/
bay_delta_plan/water_quality_control_planning/cmmnts052311/debbie_webster.
pdf
Just Google “Tracy CA water rights” and look for:
http://www.swrcb.ca.gov/waterrights/water_issues/programs/bay_delta/strategic_plan/comments/080305_strwp_tracy_comments.pdf
I often have trouble with pdf document links. Let’s try this one: [url]http://www.waterboards.ca.gov/waterrights/water_issues/programs/bay_delta/docs/spcl_stdy1.pdf[/url]
Thanks for the help Don…
Don and E. Roberts: I have not been able to locate the Tracy preliminary tentative decision through your links. I requested my copy directly from the WRCB. I’ll try to find time to look through it and post some excerpts from it.
I believe this letter from one of the attorneys covers the situation:
[url]http://www.waterboards.ca.gov/board_decisions/tentative_orders/a1846/melissa_thorme.pdf[/url]
Here are some key quotes from the TENTATIVE STATEMENT OF DECISION (Hearing Held: Friday, October 1, 2010, 9:00 a.m.)
[quote]As described above, Water Code section 13241 imposes an affirmative obligation on the State, when establishing water quality objectives, to take into account various factors, including the economic costs of adopting the proposed objective. (Water Code § 13241; RB1545-1549 [Attwater Memorandum].)–p.25 [/quote]
[quote]First, while the EIR for the 1978 Delta Plan purportedly considered socioeconomic effects, the discussion appears to be limited to the water quality requirements of municipal, agricultural, and industrial water users. In other words, the discussion concerns the economic benefits of establishing water quality objectives. There was no meaningful discussion of the economic costs of adopting the objectives, and certainly no discussion of the costs associated with the methods identified to meet the objectives.– p.25[/quote]
[quote]Having concluded that the EC objectives were improperly adopted, the Court finds the Board should be enjoined from applying the EC objectives to Tracy’s discharge and Permit pending reconsideration of the objectives in compliance with this Court’s ruling.[/quote]
[quote]Having concluded that the EC objectives were improperly adopted, the Court finds the Board should be enjoined from applying the EC objectives to Tracy’s discharge and Permit pending reconsideration of the objectives in compliance with this Court’s ruling.[/quote]
Thanks Sue, for posting this information. But it still goes along with what my contention is: Tracy has not “won” its case, in the sense that the language does not say Tracy does not have to follow the Clean Water Act standards. All it says is the State Water Board must do another review, taking cost into account as a factor to be considered. Ultimately Tracy may lose their case…