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October 30, 2000 - Water Advisory
Committee (Water Contractors) meeting Chairman Miles Ferris of the Water Advisory Committee called the meeting to order at 9 AM. He introduced himself as a member from Santa Rosa. He asked that each person introduce him/herself. Mike Martini, vice mayor Santa Rosa; Joe Gaffney, City of Rohnert Park; Chris DeGabriele, North Marin Water District; ___ Said, NMWD; Don Brandt, NMWD; Van Mazda, vice mayor, Sonoma; inaudible; City of Sonoma; Michael Wood, Valley of the Moon Water District; Paul __?__, Valley of the Moon Water District; Roberta ___?__, City of Santa Rosa; Bill Massey, Forestville Water; George Roberts, Forestville Water; Janice Cader- Thompson, Petaluma City Council; David Keller, City Council Petaluma; Nat Muller, Town of Windsor; John Nelson, consultant; __?__, Marin Municipal; Jake Mackenzie, vice mayor, City of Rohnert Park; __?__, City of Cotati; Tom Hargis, staff, City of Petaluma; __?__, Sonoma County Water Agency; ___, Sonoma County Water Agency; Pam Jeane, Water Agency; Randy Poole, Sonoma County Water Agency; Inaudible; Inaudible; Inaudible; Geoff Cartwright, Petaluma; Mike Runyon, Santa City Council; Bob Anderson, United Winegrowers; Rose Leppert; Brenda Adelman, Russian River Watershed Protection Committee; David __?__, State Department of Health Services; Steve __?__, City of Petaluma staff. Chair Miles Ferris: Good morning, all. Welcome to the Laguna Wastewater Treatment Plant. We have a number of things to cover. Does anyone have a public comment? Geoff Cartwright, Petaluma: I haven't heard anything of changing the board from the board of supervisors to an independent board for the water agency. Chair: The only thought I can give you is that it's something beyond our capability and would have to be done at the state level. The Water Agency is not part of the County of Sonoma. It's an independent subdivision of the State of California. Only the legislature and the governor can make that change. Let's move on. Did everybody get minutes of September 25th? No? On E. CUWCC BMPs (Sign-ups by Agencies). That's the California Urban Water Conservation Council Best Management Practices. This is what's in the manual. The MOU requires each agency to sign on. It includes Windsor and Marin Municipal WD requiring them to be part of the Urban Water BMPs. Sandy, the person in charge of the SR conservation program prepared 14 copies for the Water Contractors. She explained: You sign on saying you'll implement these urban conservation measures over a 10-year period. They are phased. Each measure has a different time line. The next is a staff report. We suggest you get these from a number of agencies just to see what your strongest selling point to your board is going to be. Sandy: The third is Santa Rosa's resolution. The last one is Exhibit 1. This is one portion of the Memo of Understanding. It's the part that clearly explains each measure and the commitment to implement It is to explain what you've done in the implementation. If a BMP isn't cost effective you can go through a process to exempt yourself from that BMP. This packet is a beginning. The Council web site is on the cover: CUWCC.org. To become a member you absolutely have to have a __?__ policy. Then the president or a member of your board has to sign. Then the Council will take your submittal for membership and review it through the steering committee and vote on it. That happens only four times a year. At that point you become a voting member of the California Urban Water Conservation Council. The next Plenary Council meeting will be held December 13th in San Francisco. It will be an opportunity to get to know how they operate. They're not that close to home very often. Typically they're in Sacramento or Fresno. Log onto their web site and let them know you're coming. They'll book a lunch for you. I'm from Windsor. We joined the council last year. We did it at the time we were applying for a revolving fund loan. One of the criteria on a loan is that they're looking for membership in this organization. There is quite a bit of revolving fund money. Chair Miles Ferris: Next, Policy Advisory Group - Subcommittee Update. I missed the Petaluma meeting due to an aircraft traffic control problem out of Southern California. Let's go around the table and see if anybody has anything to bring up. We talked about this last time. Where do we go from here? How do we want to make that change? There're lots of options. Some can be instituted within, some outside. With that, go around. Mike Martini: It was a wonderful opportunity for the contractors and elected officials to get together. There does appear to be some disconnect between what this body has been doing and the elected body. That's as much the fault of us elected bodies as anyone else. There was some talk of how we could use this expertise as elected officials. That's the direction I want to go. Not only this body but the Water Task Force that's being convened by the Mayors and Councilmembers is meeting Thursday. [BW Comment: This meeting of the Water Task Force, Mayors and Councilmembers, will be Thursday, November 2, at 7 PM, Cotati City Hall at 201 Sierra Avenue, Cotati. Check http://www.maps.yahoo.com for directions.] Chris, NMWD: They didn't talk about the fact that we're striving to meet the water supply needs of a half million people. At the last meeting of the subcommittee we looked at how to improve the options by working together. __?__: We were looking forward to talking about the conservation programs. That opportunity was not available that evening nor was the opportunity for talking about the need for new facilities to serve various contractors. I think all of us there at the Water Summit remember that the moderator tried to capture most of those thoughts on paper. Hopefully the subcommittee of this body will be able to glean the information and bring it back and start some deliberations here. __?_, Sonoma: I'm the one who talked about that. One of the concerns I'm starting to feel is that there are so many people pulling in so many directions. That's a concern of the leadership. Trying to keep everyone informed is very important. I hope the meeting in Cotati will deal with this so we all work together. We're not going to get everything we want. [BW Comment: A lot of these speakers were very difficult to hear both in person and on the tape recorder.] Noreen Evans, SR City Councilmember: I thought this was a really good opportunity for all the elected officials to get together and talk. What was missing was the ability to talk one city to another. I thought a couple of things came clear throughout the evening. One is that the process isn't totally broken down. That there are some good things that we have in place. So we don't need to tear things up and start from the beginning again. The elected officials feel a strong need to be more involved in this process. The challenge is to figure out how that happens in a positive way. Bill Massey: As many of you know I teach as Santa Rosa Junior College. What came out of the water conference for me was many of the things expressed by others. What comes out of that for me is a misunderstanding on many people's parts of what already exists. We don't need to reinvent the wheel. We need to understand there are the sovereign waters of the state of California. There are water rights given away by the State Board to those in the Water Agency that we as the water contractors are the prime contractors to that, and therefore, we own collectively, the delivery system. There are some things we can't do. We can't change the Water Agency board of directors. It's done at the state level. There are things which if we establish as a precedent by getting the state legislature to go along with it, we'd probably engender the ire of the rest of the state of California because it would be precedent setting. So, my concern is some of us are not yet fully up to speed as to what can and cannot be done. Understanding what we can and cannot do and being cautious in that framework and accomplishing that ability to work together as a group...there are some tight constraints. Some things we can't do. Janice Cader-Thompson: It wasn't a perfect forum. I think that the fact that elected officials came together for the first time was really important. A lot of good information was shared and I think that needs to be consolidated. When the minutes come back, I think we should consolidate the really important parts so we can move on. I felt positive that we were able to move forward together. David Keller: There will be a summary report from all the participants. That should be done in a week or so. That'll be sent out to everybody. That's being done right now. It was clear that some of the policy questions that seem to overlap from all the agencies need to be discussed by policy makers and not just left to the engineering and management staff. What are the supply questions? What's available in the two rivers systems? What are the quality issues that are coming up? I think we have to acknowledge that the first meeting was not intended to be the first, last and only meeting, but merely an introduction to the territory for policymakers to begin to get a handle on. The hopes were in fact that this was a kickoff meeting not a summary meeting, and that the discussions would continue on in various bodies including this one. The Mayors and Councilmembers Association and elsewhere recognize that we have obligations to ratepayers that are not addressed in this body or not addressed collectively. (tape change) ..and how to put together the water quantity that's available as well as the quality issues, filtration plant questions, the water rights of one of the tribes on the Upper Russian or the Eel River. All that stuff has to come back in the picture. The stakeholders involved in the water we use is a huge number. All those stakeholders diminish the security or the predictability of how much water we have and what the quality is. Those are the questions that need to continue on in discussion among the policymakers. Just from my own perspective, those questions are not easy. They're not simple, as we all know. There are no simple solutions, there are no fast solutions, but we have to deal with those issues, and I think there's a consensus that we have to take them on. If we don't take them on, the ratepayers are going to take them on with us. So, more to come. I invite everybody who did attend and did not attend to come and carry on those issues in greater specificity. Jake Mackenzie: Yes, the forum brought the officials, staff and public together. I particularly liked when B. J. Miller talked about some of the nuts and bolts stuff, experiences learned saying that while the issues we're confronting in Sonoma County the resolutions must be unique to our circumstances. The Water Agency and the contractors have a relationship established by state law, and at this moment will continue to operate under this set of obligations. I think you can see that we elected officials are going to continue to show an interest. That may change for some of us elected officials after November 7th, but now it's October 30th. I did bring up at the end of the forum what you had agreed to at the last meeting. That was to prepare an options paper of governance. I wanted to make sure that was in front of all of us who were at the forum. I believe that was written down and I believe that will be reflected in the minutes of what happened at the forum. I think in terms of the Water Task Force meeting on Thursday, I'm very hopeful that task force will be able to speak to some of the broader issues. While Sonoma County Water Agency and the contractors have their delivery system function to look at, to me the water task force will be looking at the problems dealing with water supply, water resources that are more than just those under the remit of the Water Agency and the central relationship of what this plant we're sitting in here does of treatment of wastewater and how it goes back into our environment and also how we as a region deal with groundwater resources. I still believe that we all need to come to terms with that. At the last meeting of the Rohnert Park City Council, having attended the Water Summit, we did ask that a letter be sent to the Sonoma County Water Agency indicating our interest, as was requested in the September 15th letter. We said that we did not feel bound by any one particular item in the proposed agreement that accompanied the letter. We are not interested in operating as independent units. This mechanism of operation is the way to go, and the last word from me is that our council continues to be very concerned about the water needs of our citizens. We continue to be mindful of our relationship with the contractor and the agency and the aquifer beneath us. The real concern is that the citizens have water coming out of their tap when they wake up in the morning. Chairman Ferris asked the Cotati water contractor and the water agency for comments. There were none at this time. Comment: A question I have after looking at this: Mayors and Councilmen, does that include any of the special districts? Answer: Not at this time. The rest of the comment is not audible. Jake Mackenzie: There was a limitation when the Mayors and Councilmembers formally set up the task force earlier in the fall including a member of the board of supervisors when I made a motion to set up this task force. Chair: With some of the contractors, we have three special districts. We have Forestville, Valley of the Moon, Marin Municipal and North Marin. That always leads to difficulty when you try to meet with Mayors and Councilmembers or you try to do something like _?_. Cities wouldn't allow special district members to become members of the League of Cities. And so, you have to have some idea how to bring this together. David Keller: Yes, and I think that's actually the heart of the question that came out of the forum about having electeds. Every agency and city should have an elected designated representative to this body for the purpose of coming up with just that governance possibility. How do we deal with a series of stakeholders who may not be in this audience, who may not be agencies in one group in one room? There are other people with water rights as well in the watershed that we use. Those stakeholders surely have an impact in how all this works, and that's why we need to come up with governance possibilities so we can get buy in and participation and people can feel like they are represented and do have a functional role in dealing with some of the larger issues. That's exactly why it's necessary to do that. And as a result of the forum, that was really given as a task to this body to come back to the electeds by the end of February with an options paper on governance. All these significant stakeholders, who are they and how do they function around these selection of issues and not really attached to this body? Chair: That could be enormous. One of the other issues that we need to talk about is looking at policymakers. You have special districts in some cases are all county areas but in others cover a county area and a city or two or many several cities and locations that don't decide general plans. Others decide general plans for them. [He gave the examples of San Rafael and Novato.] It gets complex and hard. David Keller, Petaluma City Councilmember: It's very complex and multi-layered, anywhere from large individual water rights holders to institutional Department of Agriculture. It goes on at a number of different levels. You have all the questions being asked about the Section 7 Consultations. You have NMFS. You have the other agencies. All of whom become players/stakeholders in how the major long-term policies get played out. Fortunately, in terms of practice that level of complexity is being delt with in several areas around the country. It's not unique to us. Water rights are a very difficult and convoluted issue. Fortunately there are models elsewhere in the country successfully. It really challenges us to accomplish this for Northern California. These issues are not going to go away. There are multi-county, multi-state efforts that are going on in other parts of the country just around the same issues: water quality, water quantity, and management of the watershed. It can be done, it has been done and I would encourage this body to take a look at how it's been done elsewhere in the country: New York, Boston, TVA, Greensboro, South Carolina, Portland, Seattle. All are working in multiple jurisdictions, multiple stakeholders, watershed management, supply and quality questions. Mike Martini: The language in Amendment 10 would set up the water advisory committee and outlines its powers. It very specifically said that there would be representation on this body that is determined by each one of the contractors. It very specifically does not say that elected officials should or should not be part of this. I think it recognizes a certain needed flexibility from each one of the contractors in how they want to participate in this. For some of the larger municipalities where you have an elected body that is directly responsible to constituents, it may be very appropriate to have, as its representative to this to have elected officials be present. Other jurisdictions may not work best with that as its model. We have to be careful with setting up options around governance that we reflect the needs of the contractors as much as we reflect the needs of the people we're serving. There's nothing in Amendment 10 that says elected officials cannot attend and participate. John Nelson, consultant: Special districts make up 30% of the action of the contractors. The next comment was not audible. Miles Ferris, Chair: I'm looking for ideas. David Keller: I didn't hear from the forum any desire to reshape this body or the Water Agency. What I heard on governance options was how do we take on that broad range of stakeholders who have significant influence on what kind of water we're going to have available for our uses. That was given as a task of this body to come up with some proposals, not necessarily changing the governance of this body. How do you set the stage to have productive discussions on the range of issues that need to be addressed? If that could be agendized for next month, hopefully by the end of February, we could have some proposals that could go out for review and discussion. Chair: I find it easier to start it with the staff and get a draft out and then let the ideas start to flow because without something, you don't get anywhere usually. Throw rocks later. Jake? Jake Mackenzie, vice mayor Rohnert Park: As one person I would welcome that. Also a liaison with the water task force to see if some connectivity could be established to see if looking at the larger picture could be helpful. Mike Martini: We need to understand how we got where we are before we know how we might change it.There is a lack of understanding even of this group's responsibilities and powers. We have a critical issue before us right now in terms of water supply, temporary impairment and where we're going to move to in the short term as well as the long term that we have got to address. Rather than worry about a straw document that deals with where do we go from here, I'd rather see our energies and efforts be split in two. One would be to get the policymakers up to speed on what has occurred and where we are right now but also get our efforts back in what are we going to do in the near future with the temporary impairment and making sure people have water coming out of their pipes when they get up in the morning. Chair: This is the very issue that makes for lag time. We should make the history available online to new policymakers and staff so everybody has the same foundation to work from. We should get together with Randy. Jake Mackenzie: Like Gaul, we now have three parts. We have my suggestion of the briefing book. We have the issue of the September 15th letter, which went to all the contractors; presumably we're all responding. Thirdly, there's still the issue of the options paper on government. We're looking at the timetable we did at the forum in Petaluma. Have this discussion: well, what's happening? Here's November, the election, Thanksgiving, here's the holidays, here's January, well, get the hearing done, well, it's the end of February. Here on the 30th of October it's not without reason to think that a briefing book could be put together, that our discussions and deliberations and the impairment issue continue. Thirdly we have circulating maybe with some synergy between the Mayors and Councilmembers Water Task Force and ourselves. Miles, you know, I can't volunteer Joe Gafney's time. I understand my relationship with our city manager. But it seems to me, there should be some division of labor. Possibly all three things we could be working track. The election thing and what happens couldn't get sorted out until after the first week in December anyway. So you can worry about who you're going to brief after the official voter counts are certified. Move after that in terms of actually briefing officials. That would be my suggestion. Certainly proceed with development of the briefing materials; deal with the temporary impairment issue. Thirdly let's have some drafts prepared on governance to circulate and looking at the end of February again as not an unreasonable date. Bill Massey, Forestville: Until we have a briefing book, until we have shared knowledge about what the world looks like, does it make sense to come up with a governance policy which we have to go back and start all over again because we just learned we're not using the same alphabet? Jake: Let me suggest a different timetable. Do it sequentially. During the month of January and February one might start off with address governance purpose. Spend the next months preparing the briefing materials. So if it's not all going forward at the same time, then it can go forward sequentially. It's the people who do the work who have to let us know what's possible. Chair: I'll get started. We'll need your help, Randy. Water Agency Chief Randy Poole: We're in a Section 7 Consultation. We're assigned to lead the effort for Sonoma, Marin, and Mendocino Counties doing something for coho and steelhead. In our consultations and discussions what we're expecting from you is using your recycled water from Santa Rosa, Petaluma, Marin County to provide benefits for the fisheries. In other words you've probably committed all your water supply now. We're looking to you folks doing something on a non-point program for the Endangered Species Act as well as the Clean Water Act. We're also expecting you to do certain things on water conservation and things of that nature. We're having discussions with Fish and Game, Resources Agency, EPA, and I think you need to understand what all we're already doing before you start talking about governance because I'm not sure what you're going to govern. It's gone. Your water supply is going to be used for something. The same thing with the City of Healdsburg, Cloverdale, Windsor. We're expecting you to recycle water, use conservation just as well as anybody else. You're on the same tap. We're expecting you to do something. It isn't just the water contractors deal. The same thing with Marin Municipal: we're expecting them to step up to the plate. This is an overview of what we see. My board is doing these things. Where are you on this? We're not seeing much commitment here on the non-point program, recycled water or even ESA. Chair: At the '98 Water Summit in Santa Rosa, there was a book put out that was really substantial. A lot of that was talking about the history, about Warm Springs Dam, how the water supply got to the dams. It gave a flavor of the whole thing and not just Russian River issues. Jake Mackenzie: You've made a case for a briefing book. From the federal legislation, the Endangered Species Act, and how autocratic it can be. The relationship of the Clean Water Act and the Safe Drinking Water Act to state and local. I came on the Rohnert Park city council four years ago as a 25-year employee of EPA and I've dealt with the ESA, the Clean Water Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act issues and that was a real need. I believe councilmembers who are involved in water issues need to have some explanation of these relationship because otherwise, what Randy's saying doesn't make any sense. I understand how difficult it is dealing with Fish and Wildlife Service and NMFS, believe me. EPA and the pesticide program have fits. You're teasing me. [Someone asked about EPA.] I don't recognize the tease when you're talking about EPA. Bill Massey: There's got to be a starting point to get everybody up to speed. This is what can be done. This is what can't be done and this is who does it. David Keller: I think Randy's points are exactly on target. What lawsuits are out there? What stakeholders are out there that are challenging the way things have been working? I think as a ratepayer I don't want to have to make decisions based on what a court says. I'd rather be out in front of that. You have to start. There is no final answer. We need to get up to speed with where we are now. We need to deal with the immediate supply questions, the immediate supply questions, the immediate infrastructure, local infrastructure, storage questions. Those need to be ironed out and gotten back in place again where we can proceed with those. We need to have the briefing book to get us up to speed on the legal framework in which we operate. What are the challenges outside that legal framework? Unknowns? And then as that information comes forward, I think it's important to take a look at the many players who are not at this table, who are not even in this county. How can we work collaboratively with all those people to make sure we have an adequate water supply forever? Agenda Item G. New Agreement for Water Supply, Chris DeGabriele, NMWD: I recommended that the water contractors consider a new agreement. The majority of folks want to move forward. There was some opinion by the agency that this couldn't be done. An alternate opinion by our legal counsel is that it can be done. I would like to propose that we continue to move down that road. I recommend that we leave Petaluma out of additional entitlement of facilities. Essentially Amendment 11 without Petaluma. Certainly that is something that can be negotiated. Move forward on protecting those facilities. You're not supposed to do that. [The next comment was not audible.] David Keller: Speaking for myself and not for the Petaluma City Council, from what I heard at the Water Forum, I think this has to be a collaborative effort. I don't think that an effort that excludes any one contractor is going to work. I certainly want to see Petaluma involved in a new agreement. That agreement needs to be pared down to what can function as opposed to Eleven that didn't function. And we need to get that down on the table and proceed with it. Chris: Can we ask that you direct your staff to give us a list of what doesn't work because there's no specific item that has come forward to negotiate on with Petaluma? If there are any items in Amendment 11 that don't work, let's look at them. David Keller: I think you've certainly seen enough of that in informal places. If you need to have that formal document, we can do that for you. Chris DeGabriele: We have to look at the baseline where we are here with the contractors. We have to look at alternates for governance. We have to address the immediate impairment. But we also have to look at the future. How do we meet our future? Dave Keller: The whole intent on saying, Wait a minute on Amendment 11, is we don't know how much water we have. All we have is secured rights to the water that we have now and the water we can get out of Warm Springs. And as Judge Antolini said, If you want to base decisions on water you have or don't have, that's a risk of the electeds, not the court. That's one extraordinarily important issue. What the current costs are? How are we dealing with the Potter Valley Project? How are we dealing with the sources of Eel River water into the system? An extraordinarily important issue. Not resolved in Amendment 11. It left a lot of these questions unresolved, and frankly again, there's no reason to rehash Eleven. Again I think you'll find very significant agreement among all water contractors for dealing with the system issues and local storage and supply lines that have to do with the current impairment. I don't think you'll find any disagreement about that. Let's proceed with that. As to how much water you want to push into this new straw, that's still an issue. That's why there was a forum, that's why there's a tremendous amount of consternation about what is it that we're planning on. What are we depending on? I don't think you could give me an answer, and so far we haven't seen an answer from anybody because those answers aren't available. Bill Massey, Forestville: I would like to hear from Randy. Assume that Eleven does go forward and we don't get what Chris is asking. What are the risks not only to us but everybody on the Russian River Specifically the eight contractors if this does not go forward, if you haven't got Amendment 11 in your pocket, what can you not do? Water Agency Chief: We are not going to proceed with the environmental work. We are planning a parallel pipe around Petaluma down to Kastania tank. The basic agreements being you can build a pipeline, you can build a tank, you have no water supply to put in it. All the water supply is either unencumbered or unused. That's Santa Rosa's and yours [Forestville's] essentially a little bitofCotati's.The idea of building something and not using it, there's no mechanism under the process to allow that to occur. The risk as far as Amendment 11 was that Santa Rosa would be allowing it __?__ impairment process [the rest not audible] My board doesn't want to be in the middle of that. You folks will have to work that out to allow it to occur. Temporary impairment allows the five-year window for potable use under impaired capacity but I don't think you could sell bonds or __?__ building. My board is not interested in Amendment 11. We've got to move forward with Section 7. [The next sentences are not clear] Mike: Randy, in terms of water supply, what is the amount of water stored behind Warm Springs Dam? Randy Pool: There are about 212,000-acre feet behind Warm Springs Dam. In a normal year it can provide approximately 80,000 acre feet + 35,000 from Mendocino. Mike: I'm sorry to interrupt you, but I am trying to follow this. We have the ability to draw 75,000-acre feet out… Randy: We have the State Water Board right to draw 75,000 af out at Mirabel along with other cities including Healdsburg and Windsor and whoever else. Mike: And with that and Collector 6, we're able to meet the 94 million gallons a day each month? Randy: 92 mgd per day, but you do the mathematical calculations: 92 million gallons per day year round [not audible] Mike: So in order to do that we would have to make application to increase 75, 000 af? Randy: 101,000. The application is at the State Water Board while we solve the fisheries issues. Where are you with AWT? A lot of the burden is on you. Where are you going with the recycled water program? We're assuming those kinds of things are going to be done and we can come up with a recovery plan. Also where are you with flood control, a non-point program? Bill Massey: Randy, is it not true, without Eleven, the State Water Board will sit on the problem? Randy: We figure our system can deliver most all of that. Maybe you have to add our water to something else. 10,000 af of that water is going to something else in the Russian River. We're going from 55,000 to 90,000… David Keller: I really appreciate Randy giving to us this morning. This is the heart of the discussion we have to have. It's some of the information we have to have on the table clear for all of us so we understand what's at jeopardy, what's possible with what we have? What's coming down the pike? What's available at what risk? Till we understand that, it's very important that we not press ahead with some prior conception of what it was we needed. The information from Randy indicates to me that just some of those questions about how much water we have, what's available, and what can our current system accommodate? And what our obligations are as contractors to be able to help this system along. I think that having a clear full discussion on that is extraordinarily important. Chris DeGabriele: You can't continue on without a new agreement. The water's there in Warm Springs. These are the projected demands. We can't answer all the questions. We don't know in 50 years what the density of housing will be. If housing in Sonoma County goes like it did in Marin County, you might have four people per dwelling unit where it's two and a half now. We may be woefully short of water supply. We can't know all the answers. Concepts that may come on line. We can't uncover all those at this point in time. Sonoma: We're never going to have the answers even after you sign something and move forward, the state and federal government can adjust their regulations. You're never going to have the answers totally, even if we do sign 11 and move forward. What are we going to do? The cost can change drastically. Depends on how much work you want to do on the fish. A lot of that has to do with logging. There's a creek up in Mendocino County. It's never had logging, but there aren't any fish in it any longer. If you bring the rivers up to what they used to be, that costs a huge amount of money, but I don't think we're going to have answers to any of that because it can change one year to the next.Cross your fingers and hope it's right. Sonoma Valley Comment: I think we heard very clearly that the Water Agency needs support from the contractors on the Section 7 Consultations, conservation, recycled water agreements, meeting entitlements. If we don't support those communities, we have a real problem. We have to deliver entitlements that are already imposed. It is important to us that we move forward on the infrastructure projects. We risk being derailed while we ponder regional issues. These issues should be considered in the context. We all agree they're important. I think we should move forward. Jake Mackenzie: In the meantime, the City of Rohnert Park signed off on the interim MOU this summer. We also signed up on the required water metering for single family units. We're a star performer on recycling. I understand that our neighbors in Cotati are shortly going to be dealing with it. I urge that we take a long last look at the MOU. I have an 11:00 meeting so I'm going to do like every other politician and leave. Sonoma Vice Mayor: I'd just like to emphasize this Mayors and Councils Committee. I hope it's not going to get bogged down with all the stuff we're getting bogged down with. I think we ought to be looking at reusing the water. If we decide on a county-wide basis if we limit the number of square yards of lawn in residential areas or whatever we have to do, that we all do it. If we can show the state and federal people, who regulate us, what we're doing…. If we get bogged down and spread out too far with this other committee, I'm hoping the people here today if they come to that meeting will restrict us to doing the things that need to be worked on now. *[RL: Reminder: The Mayors and Councilmembers Water Task Force will meet tonight, Thursday, November 2, at 7 PM, at Cotati City Hall at 201 Sierra Ave., Cotati. Open to the public. Crowds are getting larger. Interest is growing.] Mike Martini, SR Councilmember: Nothing's been resolved. You're right back to where you were. I'm hearing from every single contractor, Something has to be done; yet you say no more on this item. And nothing's been done. There is a delivery problem. There is a temporary impairment. We have a responsibility to our ratepayers, and whether or not we can come to an agreement that includes all the bodies, I'd like to see that. At the same time we have a problem that has to be addressed and it's not being addressed. David Keller: I agree with you completely that the temporary impairment issue needs to be addressed. The local storage, the improved pipeline delivery. Again I don't think there's any question among any of the contractors that it needs to get done quickly. So we can decouple that from the long-term questions of how much water's available, whether we can allocate or not allocate and not risk the ratepayers' water. Let's get on with the construction project. Let's put together an agreement among all the contractors to share the costs on local storage and local transmission questions. Keep that at this point independent from how much water you're going to stuff into that because we don't know. We can get on with the local issues. I don't see any reason that that can't happen. Mike Martini: How do you design a pipeline without suggesting how much water you're going to put in it? David Keller: There are risks implicit in the current assumptions in Amendment 11 that Judge Antolini spoke to. You can have a bigger pipeline but he's not telling you how much water's going in there. Nor did Randy know. Nobody knows at this point how much water… We've had five pipelines and five allocations based on presumptions that have a certain level of risk to them. So what? You do the same thing with the local service. You make assumptions, there's a risk involved to it. If you can size for X size pipe, or if you can size for a large pipe, or a small pipe, the engineering community is going to come up with a best guess. And there are risks involved whether or not you get water put in there but in the meantime, you get that pipeline going. The incremental difference between a 20" pipe and a 30" pipe overall is not that large, but you get your plumbing, you get your storage in place. Mike Martini: Wasn't that exactly the reason Petaluma was in opposition to Amendment 11 because there were so many unknowns? And that we didn't have a price tag for it. Now we're hearing that there are risks inherent in whatever size we put in the pipeline. If we're going to have a solution, we need to adhere to that solution. If we're not going to have that solution, we're right back to what we discussed and agreed to in Amendment 11. Isn't that where we were? Am I missing something? Sonoma: We talked about history. I can remember the City of Sonoma for many many years paying for water we never used because we were committed to pay our fair share. Is that kind of what we're talking about? Unidentified: What's the value of the information for exchange through the meetings, through the forum? And maybe you want to take a look at the 11th Amended Agreement for a meeting at a time and be very specific. Maybe there are suggestions for all the information you have and with the knowledge that there's more discussion to come on broader issues, maybe it's worth revisiting. Is that what maybe you're suggesting? Looking at that to keep some of the projects on track and knowing there will be a discussion on various issues. David Keller: As far as I'm concerned there's language in there that should be deleted or altered significantly in terms of what the future assumptions are for what we're stuffing into the system. When you can build larger straws, what we're going to fill those straws with is in great question. Who's going to pay for it is in great question. All the questions of risk. What happens with the Potter Valley Project? There are assumptions that went into 11 that are really dubious. We don't know, and to set up a system for the next 20 or 30 years of building infrastructure based on some very significant unknowns and assuming that the ratepayers are going to pick up the tab whatever the unknowns, I have a real problem with that. I'd like to bring the unknowns, I'd like to reduce the size of the unknowns that's assumed in Amendment 11, get to the heart of the issue, which are the local storage and the local plumbing to supply us. Leaves the issues of how much water we're going to stuff in and what risk and where the cost is distributed to the next agreement or to the next round of discussions that will go on so we don't have to assume that this is an all in one event that's going to hold for the ratepayers for the next 20 or 30 years. In fact there are issues being developed, there is information, and right now the language in Amendment 11 was too broad and too generic for my comfort. Sonoma Vice Mayor: If you do set up pipelines to Marin, how do you set up a system to do bonding to pay for it? David Keller: If you have current needs for local storage, it seems to me that local storage benefits the ratepayers. Another question: How about the pipeline? David: Likewise, and you have to sell to your ratepayers the case for building that pipeline…If you want to take a risk with your ratepayers with building the extra pipeline, that's between you and the ratepayers as it is for southern Sonoma. Likewise, for the ratepayers in Novato and Marin Municipal to sort out how large a pipe is going to get stuffed in there and how much the ratepayers are willing to be charged for that. That's up to us as policy setters. Mr. Massey: The question in terms that you just brought up is whether or not to go forward with some kind of structure. We agreed with Amendment 11. We signed it and reviewed it and unanimously agreed there was nothing wrong with it. Question: Do we proceed on another track? Get the concerns of Petaluma, continue the discussion? What would need to be done to have the city sign it? At least that would get the process moving. David Keller: I need to ask a question of everybody who's here: the question of governance. We have over 40 years of experience as collective agencies: collective supply, collective maintenance, collective policy setting. Do you really want to start breaking that up and balkanize the system by saying, No, we're really not going to accommodate this contractor's needs, this contractor's perceptions? Because if it's Petaluma this year, it's Forestville next year. It's Sonoma the year after that. Then it's North Marin. Is that really the way you want to proceed in governing this agency? I think it's bad policy. I'm sorry, Chris, I think it's wrongheaded. Mr. Massey cited a Forestville example of a situation they had being solved by the WAC group. [ RL: I'm going to hit the high points from now on; otherwise, I'll never get through this!] Mike Martini, SR City Councilman: We are very supportive of this collaborative effort. I think they come to the table very willing to compromise. But the needs of our ratepayers cannot be held hostage to a process that we have no control over. There will come a point when we will go off and act unilaterally. We have to move forward and deal with this temporary impairment. Specific disagreements? Red line them. Bring them back to this body. Hammer them out. We can't ignore this problem. It works both ways. Marin: From North Marin's perspective, all the language in Amendment 11 is not to our total satisfaction either. At some point our ratepayers are going to be jeopardized by the reliability of the future supply. We'll do it with you, or if we have to we'll do it without you. David Keller: There is no disagreement with that at all, speaking for myself. North Marin: I'm troubled because I don't think we can provide that assurance you're looking for. It's to the detriment to our ratepayers that we wait 10 years or 5 until the Potter Valley situation gets resolved. I want to move forward with the understanding that some of these major planning issues are ahead of us and are going to remain ahead of us for years to come. David Keller: I agree with you completely. North Marin: I didn't hear that agreement. David Keller: I agree with you completely. __?_ has quickly retained the structure improvements. We don't have to wait for PVP to be resolved. Or the Section 7 Consultation. Those are 10 to 15 years down the line. No less whatever happens in court or with the agencies. The risks that all of us take and we need to be clear with our ratepayers and our policymakers and the landuse proposals that come up, the population questions that come up is how much water can we commit to for the next 5, 10, 15 years of growth in the counties, in the respective communities with the assumption that there's going to be water? There are more and more cases where judges are saying, "You guys are promising paper water, you don't have it. Stop construction." I don't want to be in that position. I want to say, This is what you can reasonably expect. And we need to be kept up to date. We need to know why Randy needs conservation from us, and he describes what kinds of things he needs from us. We need to know why so we operate. Again I think we can move on. Randy Poole: As far as we're concerned, Amendment 11 is history. We're not going to take those battles on. Mike Martini: I think this group made a serious mistake about 10 years ago when it didn't bifurcate the group into a double-level structure and have a policy group meet maybe quarterly and we would meet monthly. 90% of the action is on the aqueduct system. Rohnert Park can't go back to groundwater use. Sonoma Valley is having trouble developing groundwater. If a water treatment plant is required in the future, you have to have it. You have no options. If you loose 15% of your supply or even 35% of your supply out of the Potter Valley Project, it makes no difference. You have no option. You've got to continue with your Russian River system. I think that if we come back with an agreement, the supervisors will sign off on it. I suggest that agreement be the 11th Agreement addressing as many of Petaluma's concerns as possible. Water conservation could be brought into that agreement. Petaluma could decide its entitlement issue. I suggest that North Marin and Marin Municipal build capacity for Petaluma on the __?__, a heck of a good investment. Deal with Petaluma later on if they want to come back in and sell it to them at 10% or 20% higher. [lots of laughs] |