About Cambria

If you missed the forum on water alternatives on March 16, 2010, you can now view it here on aboutcambria.com (in four parts). Use this link or the link in the header menu. If you were there, watch it again! Thanks to Steve Figler for the video.

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Water is the hub of Cambria issues. Essential for living things, possessing qualities unique to itself, water is a critical part of the complex systems all over the planet. Tonight’s event will be at Rabobank from 6-8pm. It is billed as an educational and informational evening for Cambrians that will cover a number of topics related to alternative water sources. With so much to know about  the complexity of water management (assuring a reliable supply) and education in short supply, this may become the first of many such events. Tonight’s agenda includes talks from experts on clean water & conservation, greywater systems, storage ponds, and water supply. See the flyer below.

See you there!

At the November 16, 2009 meeting of the Cambria Community Services District meeting, District Engineer Bob Gresens did a presentation on the costs of various potable water supplies for Cambria. If you missed the meeting and don’t have Charter Cable, you were out of luck on seeing the powerpoint. The Cambria CSD added the presentation to its website at least a week ago as an addendum to the November 16, 2009 agenda packet. It took me a while to find it there, but here is the critical page. (Download the full presentation here.)

There are a number of questions we should be asking, starting with the most important one: how much will it cost Cambrians to go from 90%  to 100% reliability from their water system?**(see below) Note that when the aquifers are completely recharged, we have enough water to meet current demand without threat of saltwater intrusion or habitat destruction.

Director DeMicco asked Gresens to show how he arrived at the numbers shown below and will likely do so in a utilities committee meeting. The information in this chart is incomplete or comparing apples with oranges and could be misleading if misunderstood. I encourage you to take it with a grain of salt (no pun intended). I look forward to hearing Mr. Gresens

Cost of Various Water Supply Alternatives

PRESENT WORTH COST SUMMARY OF POTABLE WATER SUPPLY ALTERNATIVES

**In Task Two of the District’s Master Plan (a.k.a. the Kennedy Jenks baseline water supply analysis)  the following conclusions were developed:
• The District’s current water supplies are marginal to inadequate to provide a 90 percent level of reliability (i.e., in about one out of ten years there may not be enough water for current customers, who will have to cut back on water use).
• The District’s current water supplies are inadequate to provide a 95 percent level of reliability (i.e., in about one out of twenty years there may be a severe water  shortage and current customers will have to cut back on water use).

The recurrence frequency of incomplete refill in the San Simeon Creek basin has been estimated at 1 year in 34. The return frequency for the same event in Santa Rosa Creek basin has been estimated at 1 year in 25 (Yates, 1991).

It also assumes “Public water utilities should have a water supply reliability of 90 to <100 percent, recognizing that the cost to achieve high levels of reliability may be difficult and expensive. Accordingly, alternative criteria of 90 and 95 percent reliability are presented.”

Based on the evaluation criteria presented in the previous section, the analysis  indicates  the projected ending groundwater level in the San Simeon Creek basin is expected to be above the minimum groundwater level criterion if the basin is completely recharged at the beginning of the Dry Season and the probability that groundwater levels will be sufficiently high at the beginning of the Dry Season to maintain the minimum criteria is near the 90 percent reliability objective but well below the 95 percent reliability objective, particularly in critically dry years.
Also, the expected production requirements from each basin is within its dry season water rights limitations. The results of this dry season evaluation indicate that all of the evaluation criteria except for the 90 percent reliability criterion during extreme critically dry years and the 95 percent reliability criterion are met for current water demands. Therefore, the District’s current water supplies are marginal to inadequate to provide a 90 percent level of reliability for current water demands and are inadequate to provide a 95 percent reliability level.

Additional analysis from the Kennedy Jenks study will follow. Download a version marked with my highlighting here.

Since at least the 1950s,  the USGS has done a survey of water use in the U.S. The most recent one was recently released. The report includes some striking numbers and trends in use that might seem counter-intuitive, given that our population growth isn’t slowing down at all. The Pacific Institute, a well-known California-based nonpartisan research institute that works to advance environmental protection, economic development, and social equity reviewed the data and has issued their commentary on the report.

A more straight forward read for the “average joe”, in my opinion, was posted by Gretchen Weber on the website of  KQED, the San Francisco PBS station.  The article starts:

Despite the addition of 81 million people over the period, Americans were using less water in 2005 than they were in 1975.

And goes on:

The per-capita decrease of 30% since 2000, down to 1383 gallons per person per day, is a level not seen since the 1950s.  Of course this doesn’t mean that each person in the United States is using more than a thousand gallons per day at home–that number is somewhere between 54 (if you live in Maine) and 190 (if you live in Nevada).  The USGS number is derived from dividing total water withdrawals by total population.  In 2005, the total withdrawal was 410 billion gallons per day (5% less than in the peak year, 1980) and the total population was approximately 310 million.

From TreePeople via Reuters:
“SACRAMENTO, Calif., Oct. 12 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Despite threats by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to kill all of the 704 bills on his desk unless the and legislators reached an agreement, the Governor decided to approve SB 790, also known as the Stormwater Resource Planning Act. SB 790 creates a new framework encouraging California [...]

From Asheville’s Citizen-Times, this commentary by Damien Schiff of the Pacific Legal Foundation:
“The Endangered Species Act (ESA) is one of the most powerful federal environmental laws, dictating land use and development over millions of acres throughout the nation. Whatever its original purpose, the ESA has become a handy tool for environmentalist extremists to push an [...]

As Cambrians, we know the drill: no watering during mid-day (you don’t have a lawn, do you?), wash your car with a bucket, turn the faucet off when you brush your teeth, hope for regular rain, hope against seawater intrusion or MtBE contamination, watch for leaks, all with threat of surcharges  around the next corner.

On average, Cambrians use fewer gallons per person per day than in many communities in California. That’s not all that impressive, actually. But to understand water use in Cambria, let’s review a few basics.  First, water use varies greatly depending on the location, whether the water is metered, weather, landscaping choices, plumbing standards and age of the plumbing and fixtures. Water use is also affected our behavior choices and social norms (aka peer pressure).

Over the course of a year, Cambrians use an average of 90 gallons per person per day (gpcd).  This is just under the EPA estimated national average of 100 gpcd, but more than the 70 gpcd estimated by the American Water Works Association (AWWA) in 1999. The California Department of Water Resources (DWR) recommends water agencies use 70 gpcd for planning and resource management.

Unless you’ve picked up one of the District’s special water monitors that shows your water use in real time, converting the number of units on your bi-monthly bill to gallons per day isn’t an easy conversion. So here is an easy to use calculator. Just enter the number of units on any CCSD bill and the number of people who live in your home and your gpcd will be automatically calculated.

The chart below is a bit dated (1999), but shows average indoor use for households in this area.

The average indoor use of 70 gpcd for a household of 2 people translates to about 11 units per billing cycle. There are opportunities to reduce indoor water use that don’t reduce your quality of life. Sure, you should avoid letting the water run when you brush your teeth, but if you have a newer shower head and efficient toilets, it’s hardly necessary to deprive yourself of a decent shower. One 10 minute shower every day adds up to 1.6 units on your water bill. Replacing an older toilet with an efficient new model can save you almost 2.4 units per billing cycle.

Why does this all matter? Because we have to be responsible and share the limited water resources here. The CCSD is working on ensuring greater reliability so new homes and businesses can be built without depleting the resource.

With the whole state experiencing the fiscal calamity and the spotlight on the State Water Project, the Delta and an ongoing drought conditions, there is no shortage of online articles focusing on water supply, use, management and solutions to address the realities of a finite amount of fresh and clean water. Here are five links to learn from:

The U.S. Is Years Behind the Rest of the World on Water Issues

The Water Desalination PR Battle: Despite Some Salty Protests, Desal Plants Still Going Up

A Clear Blue Future: How Greening California Cities Can Address Water Resources and Climate Challenges in the 21st Century

Coalition Unveils California Water Solutions Report at Million Boat Float

Disobey Your Thirst Good Magazine focuses on Water in their current issue.

At last week’s CCSD meeting, I made a formal request that the Board review and reconsider the need for and appropriateness of the Water Code Section  350 emergency declaration at a public hearing. Below is the letter I will be sending as a followup to the Board. What do you think?

I am writing this letter to follow up on the request I made during the public comment period at the August 20, 2009 regular meeting of the Cambria Community Services District.

During those comments, I made a formal request that the CCSD Board review and reconsider the need for and appropriateness of the Water Code Section  350 emergency declaration at a public hearing.

It’s been 2,856 days since CCSD’s board declared a water emergency under California Water Code Section 350.

That state law allows  water agencies “may declare a water shortage emergency condition to prevail within the area served by such distributor whenever it finds and determines that the ordinary demands and requirements of water consumers cannot be satisfied without depleting the water supply of the distributor to the extent that there would be insufficient water for human consumption, sanitation, and fire protection.”

It goes on to provide additional powers and responsibilities:

• “it shall thereupon adopt such regulations and restrictions on the delivery of water and the consumption within said area of water supplied for public use as will in the sound discretion of such governing body conserve the water supply for the greatest public benefit with  particular regard to domestic use, sanitation, and fire protection.”
• “The regulations and restrictions shall thereafter be and remain in full force and effect during the period of the emergency and until the supply of water available for distribution within such area has been replenished or augmented.”
• “The regulations and restrictions may include the right to deny applications for new or additional service connections, and provision for their enforcement by discontinuing service to consumers willfully violating the regulations and  restrictions.”

It was October 25, 2001 was the last time CCSD issued an intent to serve letter for a new home.

Since declaring the water shortage emergency, the district has taken numerous actions that affect the water supply availability:

• developed and approved a water master plan.
• had a change of 3 board members.
• increased storage capacity for fire from 1 million to 1.7 million gallons, an amount that minimizes the chance of service interruption in case the need for fire suppression is coincident with an accident-like the recent Cornwall/Sheffield break.
• increased the water pressure 250 percent to provide adequate flow for firefighting.
• implemented a retrofit rebate program for low-flow toilets and washers that is about to lose funding (almost 300 washer rebates issued to date).
• Reduced the number of potential through promotion of lot mergers and conservation easements.
• attempted (unsuccessfully) to adjudicate the San Simeon basin with  those with senior water rights.
• analyzed alternative sources for additional water and approved taking action to build a desalination plant .
• installed new electronic meters  for almost all customers to reduce water losses from over 12% to about 8%.

In addition to the actions cited above and other Board policy decisions and actions, standards for water efficiency in new construction (both indoor & outdoor use) combined with the county policy and ordinances limiting the rate of growth to less than 2.3% of current housing units county-wide (limited to 1% in Cambria until 2006, 0% through June 2012) protect our water supply from depletion due to new connections that may be permitted over the next 10 years.

We have a wonderful town here and could find ourselves in the expensive and awkward position of defending policies that are outdated, inconsistent or without firm footing.

I am requesting that discussion of reconsideration of the State Water Code 350 emergency declaration be placed on the CCSD Board Agenda without delay.  After eight years and many improvements in our water system and demand management, such a discussion seems a valuable use of the Board’s time and energy.

If the Executive Committee declines to schedule this discussion on the agenda for full Board discussion, I ask to be provided the specific reasons for declining the request, in writing.

Respectfully,

Amanda C. Rice

Cambria Homeowner

www.AboutCambria.com

cc:

Tammy Rudock, CCSD General Manager

Bruce Gibson, Chair, SLO County Board of Supervisors

Paul Hood, Executive Officer, SLO Local Agency Formation Commission

Charles Lester, Central Coast Senior Deputy Director, California Coastal Commission

Lois Capps, Congresswoman California’s 23^rd District

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The fundamental vulnerability of Cambria could turn out to be our leaders’ determination to control growth. In the long run it may make no difference WHY they are pushing to limit the number of connections (because the Coastal Commission has told Cambria it must mitigate for potentially destructive growth induced by a desal plant. All our eyes have been on desalination and assuring extremely high reliability for our water supply. This focus on desal has kept us from seeing our soft spot clearly. Our Achilles heel may turn out to be something  we rarely talk about in polite company: wastewater service.

If I learned anything during last summer’s too close to call rate increase, it’s that water and sewer are separate services provided by the CCSD. Each has their own department and bank account. The most recent rate increase for water and sewer was explicit in keeping the two separate. A protest could be against an increase in water, sewer or both. The first two Prop 218  protests didn’t acknowledge these are two distinct services. Not recognizing there are distinct enterprises is an easy mistake to make, since you get one bill from one district (CCSD) and its kind of all pipes and liquid and mostly taken for granted. Water and wastewater seem inseparable – except for about 100 Cambrians, if a Cambrian has water service, they also have wastewater service.

Here is why this distinction could make all the difference: the wastewater treatment plant isn’t at capacity – not even close, really. While we may not have enough water for additional homes, we can’t really claim we don’t have the capacity or that pipes are not fronting virtually every property in Cambria (with the exception of Liemert). The sewer infrastructure and wastewater treatment plant improvements were paid for with bond and property taxes. In the USA, anyone who pays for a benefit with their taxes must be provided that benefit. There are many lot owners that have paid a share of the funds used for the wastewater treatment. They may be entitled to the benefit.

The problem lays in the fact that CCSD has been using the “we’ve got no water” explanation to deny access and connection to the wastewater system. Since obtaining a will-serve letter is a requirement for requesting a building permit from the County, no one can get a building permit. The second problem is that the CCSD won’t answer the question as to whether or not they will provide sewer service to a property.

One property owner who is not on the CCSD waitlist has spent a lot of time and money trying to get the permits and variances needed to build his home. A recent letter to the Board of Supervisors speaks to the complexity of the issue, but also to the simplicity of it. When sewer service pipelines front a property, that property is required to hook into it (and not have a septic tank or other solution).  The planning area standards require water and wastewater service be provided by the CCSD.  The letter asks if this standard prevents the use of any other water supply (trucked in, for example.)

Read the full letter from Unclog Cambria here.