City could ask state to hold off tripling water rates

Water stains on fences are caused by high salinity in Davis water. Here, Jo Wragg walks with her dog Sophie, a nine-year-old Tibetan terrier, past Jacqueline Gilardi's bike-decorated, though water stained fence on Eighth Street Monday afternoon. Fred Gladdis/Enterprise photo

Davis could push back deadlines to clean up its water by as much as a decade and hold off tripling residents’ water bills, according to a state official.

A new law allows cities to apply for further extension on requirements to clean up the water they discharge into the environment, said Ken Landau, assistant executive officer for the Central Valley State Water Regional Control Board.

That would allow Davis to push back a 2017 deadline to clean up the water it discharges into the delta, which has far too much salt, selenium and boron to meet the upcoming benchmark. Those new limits, city officials have been saying, are driving a $325 million project that would pump Sacramento River water into homes and businesses in both cities.

Davis also would avoid its share of the project — $160 million, which officials estimate would triple residents’ monthly water rate from about $35 now to $109 in five years.

The project is a good one, City Council member Sue Greenwald told a group of some 40 residents last week, but it hits residents’ pocketbooks hard, particularly residents on fixed incomes. She advocates cutting costs at every opportunity, saying it’s unwise to overbuild the project, given the “extraordinary burden on the ratepayer.”

“If the financing doesn’t work out, or if costs can’t be controlled, we have options,” she wrote in an oped piece published last week in The Enterprise. “We are likely to have more negotiating room with the Water Resources Control Board in the future regarding salinity.

“We could dig more deep wells, which is far less expensive; we could intensify progressive rates and other conservation efforts, and use the intermediate aquifer for landscape work.”

She added that she is bothered by the “scare tactics” other politicians and officials are using to make it seem as if there are no other options.

Salty water causes problems for farmers downstream. Salty water limits what they can grow, forcing them to plant less profitable crops, which means fewer jobs, Landau said.

“Farmers can simply grow fewer crops,” Landau said. “Sometimes they can’t grow a crop.”

The state will nail Davis with stiff fines if the city doesn’t meet the upcoming requirements or apply for and secure an extension, he added. The state hasn’t set the benchmarks just yet, but salt levels in both Davis and Woodland water are “far above anything we would come up with.”

With no limits in place, it’s hard to say how much the state would ding Davis. It’s safe to say it would total in the tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars.

“Bottom line: It will add up to a whole lot of money over time,” Landau said.

Tracy, a San Joaquin Valley city of about 82,000, bought itself some time last month by suing the state and winning a reprieve from “stringent” wastewater requirements, said Dan Sodergren, the city’s attorney. Without it, Tracy was looking at spending $120 million to build a reverse osmosis system, which would have cleaned up already-used water before chucking it into the delta.

That would have meant “a significant increase” to water bills and put the hurt on ratepayers, Sodergren added.

The judge in the case ordered the state to go back and analyze the economic impact Tracy’s water requirements would have, Landau said, but it’s not about the burden on a particular town; it’s about the big picture.

“There are economic costs and benefits on all sides,” he said. “It’s not just a matter of ‘is it going to cost the city of Tracy a lot of money?”

The law requires the water control board to factor in economic impact on a more regional basis, which would include the cost to ratepayers. However, the water board also would factor in the economic boon to farmers downstream who can plant a greater diversity of crops with better water, the money residents save by not installing water softeners as well as the money saved by buying water heaters less often.

“That doesn’t mean because it costs a lot you don’t have to make people do it,” Landau said. “It means you need to consider the cost as part of the whole benefit and detriment to the regulation.”

Tracy’s win is not relevant to Davis, Landau said, because the limits are different — Davis is north of the delta and anything it pumps out is going to hit everyone downstream.

Therefore, Davis and Woodland face higher standards, said Melissa Thorme, the Sacramento-based water lawyer who represented Tracy. Throme lives in North Davis Meadows and represented the city of Woodland in a separate but related water matter.

It’s not an apples-to-apples comparison, so it’s hard to say if Davis or Woodland would get a similar reprieve, she said.

“There are people all over the state who are suffering from the same problem,” Thorme said.

She represents clients who are charging their residents $120 per month to provide sewer service, which doesn’t include fresh water.

So $100 a month, even though it’s triple Davis’ going rate, is “not beyond the pale.”

The cities could kick the water discharge can down the road, but they’ll have to deal with it eventually, she said. The limits aren’t going away.

— Reach Jonathan Edwards at jedwards@davisenterprise.net or (530) 747-8052.

Short URL: http://www.davisenterprise.com/?p=55946

Posted by Jonathan Edwards on Jun 20 2011.
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