Running Water

The big action at today’s SCVWD Board meeting was a direction to District staff to craft a mandatory conservation plan, ready to implement in case renewed calls for voluntary 10% conservation fall short. The directors also expressed strong support for tiered pricing, where heavier water users pay more than the thrifty. About half of the municipal water retailers, including Morgan Hill and San José, already have tiered pricing, and the San José Water Company is, according to CEO George Belhumeur, currently working with the Public Utilities Commission to implement it themselves.

This is a good place to point to the Aguanomics blog, by David Zetland, who calls for a true market in water to allocate resources more efficiently.

The water supply outlook presentation was pretty darn grim. If 2009 is an average year, we’ll be holding our own, but, if it’s a critically dry year, then the difference between demand and supply is an breathtaking 230,000 acre-feet. The supply in this forecast is not even half of the expected demand.

Directors Kwok and Santos also called out strongly for increased use of recycled water, both in streamflow augmentation, if possible, and in new development along North First Street in San José. Chair Kamei pointed out that the joint District-City committee on recycled water will not meet for the first time until August.

A very interesting fact pointed out by Mr. Belhumeur is the seasonal difference in water use due to outdoor irrigation. A typical winter day sees the San José Water Company delivering 85 million gallons of water, while that number often rises to 220 million gallons in the summer. Due to this past very dry spring, residents turned on their sprinklers in March instead of May, and year-on-year water use jumped up. Outdoor water use is really where residential customers can make the biggest impact, but it requires a much bigger investment to replace thirsty landscaping. Turning off the faucet when you brush your teeth doesn’t have quite the same effect.

Tonight’s public hearing for the Alviso Slough Restoration Project was well-attended by supporters of the project. I’d estimate there were 125 people in the audience, and more than 50 got up to speak in favor, with 20-30 turning in comment cards to be read into the record. Katherine Oven began with a presentation that summarized the six identified alternatives, but Alternative 5, “the whole enchilada,” as several people referred to it, is what everyone meant when they referred to the project.

As I’ve noted before, there is a very strong feeling among Alvisans that they are owed recompense for years of neglect. One can argue that the Santa Clara Valley Water District is not the agency responsible for the recreational needs and economic revitalization of Alviso, but it happens to be the agency with the money.

More disturbing to me was the insistence that Alternative 5 would make residents safer from flooding. Ms. Oven carefully stressed that the project will maintain existing levels of riverine flood protection. The area of the channel that would be dredged is still some 2 miles upstream of the bay. Flood waters would speed up in the deeper section, then run into the still-narrow downstream channel and back up, flowing around existing levees and through New Chicago Marsh back into Alviso.

Of course, this wouldn’t be allowed; Alternative 5 calls for measures to mitigate this danger. But it is an article of faith that the Alviso Slough Restoration Project is a flood control project, and is necessary to avert another disaster like the flooding in 1983. No one is talking about dredging the entire channel out to the bay.

There were several interesting comments. Charles Taylor noted that, of the $500 million spent in total on flood protection work on the Guadalupe River, $22 million was probably wasted, so Alternative 5 was comparatively very cheap. He also opined that many more people would get enjoyment from a restored Alviso marina than would ever use the river trail through downtown, or the expensive landscaping that was such a big part of the $500 million for the rest of the river. Eddie Souza, the former mayor of Santa Clara, thought that a revitalized Alviso marina could become a new transportation center for the South Bay, and could even play a role in emergency evacuations.

But the overriding feeling of the meeting was that Alviso deserves this project because of the neglect that it has suffered over the years.

Dick Santos has had it up to here.

Paul Rogers has written a good article in this morning’s Mercury about the Alviso Slough Restoration Project, in the run-up to Wednesday’s public meeting. I would go farther in stressing that the strong feeling among Alvisans in support of this project seems to come from their living sense of historical grievance. I do understand how a community that has been flooded so many times in recent memory might not trust the powers that be, but why involve hydrological engineers at all if you don’t accept their findings?

I think that the important thing for Alviso has become the mere spending of large amounts of money on Alviso. The proposed Gold Street Education Center is another example: the discussion at the Board meeting on 24 June focused on what a wonderful amenity it would be for the community, with no mention of the programs it’s supposed to foster, or who would provide or even attend them.

Although the charges of neglecting Alviso are usually aimed at San Jose, it’s the Santa Clara Valley Water District that has the big bucks. As the article says, spending $22 million on this project is taking away from other, county-wide flood protection priorities. Everyone who lives in Santa Clara County has a stake in this, and I encourage everyone to attend the public meeting on Wednesday the 16th at 7:00 at George Mayne Elementary School.

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I’ve been happy to see the recent coverage of the SCVWD in the Mercury. Paul Rogers has written stories on the new water quality lab and the groundbreaking for the upper Guadalupe project. Scott Herhold has written a somewhat more critical piece on the proposed Gold Street Educational Center. This morning, Paul Rogers reported on CEO Olga Martin Steele’s high salary and state pension, since extending her contract was on the agenda for today’s Board meeting.

The meeting was a speedy one, with item after item disposed of sans discussion or dissenting votes. When the contract extension came up, Board members were fulsome in their praise. Director Estremera recounted how the Board had “begged” Ms. Steele to take the job, and how much of a hardship is must pose to her, with all of the travel and disruption of her planned retirement. Director Santos echoed this gratitude, and went on to complain that the real reason that the newspaper was critical of the District’s CEO is because she’s a woman.

Director Kwok, after joining in the chorus of thanks to Ms. Steele, did say that it is time for the Board to find a permanent replacement, but no one seemed inclined to take that anywhere. If, as the article says, she’s likely to quit at the end of 2008 to preserve her $180,000 state pension, the Board doesn’t have a lot of time to waste.

It should come as no surprise that the Board voted unanimously to extend her contract by six months, and Paul Rogers has already posted a follow-up article reporting so.

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.