Running Water

This morning’s big item was the resolution to “Set Public Hearing and Issue Draft Engineer’s Report and Draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR) for Public Review and Comment Regarding Alviso Slough Restoration Project.” Said reports are available here, but, be warned. They are massive. Paper copies are also available for public review at the Alviso branch of the San José Public Library, as well as the King main library and the District headquarters.

About 15 people spoke in favor of the project, all of them from or connected with Alviso in some way. This despite the fact that the Board today only took action, as I said above, to set the public hearing and issue the draft reports. The public hearing is set for 16 July at 7:00 pm at George Mayne Elementary School in Alviso.

The District staff considered six project alternatives, from doing nothing (which is always a required option) to the big project that the people from Alviso had in mind when they spoke in favor of going ahead. This option is known as alternative 5 in the reports.

The proposed Project Alternative 5, shown in Figure ES-1, would include vegetation and root mass removal to a depth of 4 feet over 15.3 acres, and additional dredging over 9.7 acres to a 10 foot depth, for a total project footprint of 25 acres between the Gold Street Bridge and the Alviso County Marina. This work would result in an open-water channel width and depth that would replicate slough conditions of the early 1980s along a 0.6 mile length of slough.

Alternative 5 would widen and deepen the slough channel to allow two-way boat traffic between the Gold Street Bridge and the existing Alviso County Marina. Vegetation and root mass removal to 4 feet would not significantly alter the depth of the slough in the Project Area over the 15.3 acres of proposed such work, as only the root mass and the small amount of sediment
attached to the roots would be removed. The 9.7 acres of dredged area would show significant improvement in depth.

…

The proposed project would be financed by the Watershed and Stream Stewardship Fund. Based on recent fiscal analysis, expending $22.2 million for the capital investment of the staff- recommended alternative would cause the fund balance to dip below the level set by the Board’s reserve policy. In order to maintain the necessary reserves, reprioritization of currently-approved capital projects would be required.

For long-term maintenance of the completed project, approximately $3.6M would have to be set aside annually from property tax revenues to fund ongoing removal of re-emerging vegetation and periodic dredging of the slough channel to maintain post-project conditions. This is a conservative estimate; if the proposed Pond A8 Phase 1 Action is implemented and operated successfully, the long-term maintenance costs for the Alviso Slough Restoration Project would be reduced. The current annual property tax revenues closely match the existing annual operations and maintenance program in all the watersheds of the county; thus, some programs would be curtailed, and others permanently cut, to set aside the necessary monies for post-project O&M work.

So this large project would come at the expense of other projects, as would the ongoing cost of maintaining it.

It’s too early for me to say what I think about it, but I do hope that people unconnected with Alviso will also take the time to make their feelings known.

Two weeks ago, when the SCVWD Board had got to the end of its budget week without having finished, they set a special meeting for today, 9 June, to get through it all. Director Estremera proclaimed “We won’t leave until it’s done, even if we have to set up cots in the Board room.”

At about 4:45 this afternoon, that enthusiasm was flagging, but the Board managed to stick it out long enough to make decisions on staffing, and to set the groundwater charges for the upcoming fiscal year. They didn’t, however, get through the entire draft budget, so that’s been carried over into tomorrow’s already-crowded agenda.

I’ll cut to the chase. The Board did not approve staff’s request for 12 new positions, and they did approve the recommended non-agricultural groundwater charges of $520 per acre-foot in north county and $275 per acre-foot in south county. Given the 28 vacant positions that had already been cut from the draft budget by the CEO, these charges could have been $16 and $18 less per acre-foot, respectively, and Directors Kamei and Kwok voted to reduce them by that much. The majority opinion, forcefully voiced by Directors Estremera and Wilson, was that there are unknown but large costs that the District will face, possibly this year, and that the extra money should be collected and set aside in case of these eventualities. Directors Sanchez and Santos voted with the majority. Director Judge was not present at the meeting at all.

Directors Kwok and Kamei tried to make the point that extra costs should be explicitly budgeted and charged for, instead of collecting extra money “just in case.” I strongly agree with this position.

Several points stood out for me during this five-hour meeting. First, Peter Ng, the CFO, said that every 10% drop in demand for water leads to a $13.5 million decrease in revenue for the water utility. Quite the perverse incentive; it’s amazing the District encourages conservation as much as it does. Second, the salary and benefit costs for the District rise about 3.8% a year, from inflation and union agreements alone, irrespective of extra staffing.

The City Manager from Morgan Hill, Ed Tewes, made a comment that, in the city of Morgan Hill’s view, the groundwater charges are a “property-related fee” under the terms of Proposition 218 and, as such, should not be charged at different rates for agricultural and non-agricultural use, since the benefit to either type of user is the same. This seemed to catch the Board by surprise. Director Santos had clearly never heard of Prop 218, and Chair Kamei had to ask Mr. Tewes to come back and explain it a bit more.

Chair Kamei had some sharp words for staff regarding community outreach programs like CreekWise, the Creek Connections Action Group (which coordinates the cleanup events twice a year) the Adopt-a-Creek, sandbag outreach, and schools programs. Staff insisted that they needed another position to support them, and the Board insisted back that they were important priorities for the Board, and should be accomplished using existing resources.

The Board, again, focused a lot of attention on relatively small amounts of money, which is why this meeting lasted as long as it did. However, I know that these “small amounts” add up. Director Estremera expressed the hope that “enforced shortages” from the 12 unfilled extra positions would put enough pressure on staff to come up with more operating efficiencies. With the stress that every Director put on the fact that staff can always come back for a budget adjustment if they can’t get the work done, I have some doubts.

Governor Schwarzenegger declared a drought yesterday, the first since 1991, although he stopped short of declaring a state of emergency. He’s calling for voluntary conservation efforts, and giving them time to work before imposing mandatory water rationing.

It’s unfortunate that California as a whole whipsaws between pushing conservation in dry years and ignoring it in wet years.

While I was walking precincts, I talked to a voter who was incensed that homeowners are asked to cut back on watering their lawns when large agribuisness uses many, many times more water irrigating thirsty crops like alfalfa and rice in the Central Valley. Why, he asked, couldn’t they be forced to switch crops? I tried to explain that water rights are the same as property rights, and can’t be taken away by fiat, but I had to admit that I agreed with him on the general point.

And farmers are feeling the pressure. The Westlands Water District has already announced 40 - 45% cutbacks for farmers this summer.

Schwarzenegger is hoping to get Democrats in the Legislature to agree to his overarching water strategy, which calls for an $11.9 billion bond issue to pay for:

• Water Storage: $3.5 billion dedicated to the development of additional storage.
• Delta Sustainability: $2.4 billion to help implement a sustainable resource management plan for the Delta.
• Water Resources Stewardship: $1.1 billion to implement river restoration projects.
• Water Conservation: $3.1 billion to increase water use efficiency.
• Water Quality Improvement: $1.1 billion for efforts to reduce the contamination of groundwater.
• Other Critical Water Projects: $700 million for water recycling, hillside restoration for areas devastated by fire and removal of fish barriers on key rivers and streams.

Remember that storage means dams and reservoirs, although specifically off-stream reservoirs in this case.

The chances of this happening in a year when the state is already trying to reconcile a budget deficit that is sometimes pegged at $20 billion, however, seem remote. On the other hand, if not now, when?

I congratulate Joe Judge on his victory yesterday, and I thank him for running such a positive campaign.

And I thank everyone who supported me. I had a terrific time running for this seat, and I look forward to more involvement with water issues.

Keep reading! There is more to come.

For up-to-the-minute election results, click here and scroll down.

I’m proud to get the endorsement of Jack VanZandt, who runs San Jose Inside.

This piece in the Sacramento Bee is remarkable for many reasons. First, the strangeness of which he freely acknowledges, Dan Walters praises the city government of San Francisco:

The liberal bastion of San Francisco might seem to be the last place to discover hardheaded realism on public employee pensions and health care, but if Proposition B on Tuesday’s ballot is endorsed by city voters, it may point the way for other entities.

Proposition B grapples with the unfunded liability of employee retiree health benefits:

Mayor Gavin Newsom and Supervisor Sean Elsbernd hammered out an agreement with city employee unions that freezes wages for two years and sharply tightens eligibility for retiree health care benefits for future employees in return for a fairly modest increase in city pension benefits – and then won a unanimous vote by the city’s notoriously fractious Board of Supervisors to place it on the ballot.

But the shocker for me was the extravagant benefits that the city was already providing:

Current city employees can obtain fully paid lifetime health benefits after only five years on the payroll, but under the agreement affecting future workers, it would take 20 years on the job to get full benefits. And new employees would also have to pay, through payroll deductions, two-thirds of the cost of those future benefits.

Five years! I thought that the SCVWD’s former ten year requirement was generous. Five years is insane!

The article also contains this telling fact:

San Francisco’s pension benefits are markedly less generous than those of many other cities, largely because any change must be ratified by voters. With that restriction, San Francisco politicians were unable to boost benefits sharply when the stock market boomed in the 1990s, as the state and many local governments did. As a result, the city’s pension fund enjoys a healthy surplus.

Ultimately, the public pays for all of this. Elected officials can grant chunks of public money that keep paying out long after they have left office, but the public will always get the bill. Voters need a greater say in how their money is spent.

The county boat inspection program seems to be functioning. “By 2 p.m. Saturday, inspectors at Anderson Lake had climbed into and crawled under about 56 boats. They sent about 13 away after finding water in the hull or the motor. Some were also sent back with other problems.”