About Cambria

The next meeting of the Cambria Community Services District is Thursday June 24, 2010 at 12:30 at the Veteran’s Memorial Hall. Highlights of the agenda are here, the full agenda is available at cambriacsd.org.

The Water Emergency Alternatives Citizens’ Committee will provide  a progress report on the committee’s work.

The Consent Agenda includes:
A. Approve Expenditures for Month of May 2010
B. Approve Minutes of Board of Directors Meeting, May 27, 2010
C. Consider Adoption of Ordinance 01-2010 Adding Provisions to the CCSD Municipal Code Establishing the Board’s Policy that New Hire Employees Pay 100% of the Employee’s Designated Share of the PERS Retirement Contribution
D. Consider Adoption of Resolution 28-2010 Authorizing Reporting the Payment of Member Contributions to the California Public Employees’
Retirement System for CCSD Management and Confidential Employees (MCE)
E. Consider Adoption of Resolution 29-2010 Approving VanScoyoc Associates Professional Services Agreement
F. Consider Adoption of Resolution 30-2010 Approving AGP Video, Inc. Professional Services Agreement
G. Consider Adoption of Resolution 31-2010 Approving TechExpress Professional Services Information Technology (IT) Agreement

HEARINGS AND APPEALS

A. Conduct Public Hearing to Consider Adoption of Resolution 32-2010 Approving the CCSD Operating Budget for Fiscal Year 2010/2011

B. Public Hearing to Consider Adoption of Resolution 33-2010 Authorizing a 1.9% CPI Adjustment in the Fire Suppression Benefit Assessment

REGULAR BUSINESS
A. Receive Report by Land Conservancy of San Luis Obispo County on Cambria Vacant Parcel Assessment

The whole meeting (not including public comment) is estimated to take an hour and a half. Since they are considering the budget for next year and an increase in the fire benefit assessment, once again the estimated time is unlikely to be the reality. More on the budget when the board packet is available to me.

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.

93428, cambria

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.

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.

In a recent post, I  focused on individual water use in Cambria. The focus for today is total annual water use for Cambria. The data below is from the well production reports provided by the CCSD. The numbers for each month are a composite of production from both Santa Rosa and San Simeon Creeks. Some months the production is entirely from San Simeon Creek, some months the production is spread equally between the two creeks. If you are interested in seeing the production for each well, click the “WellProductionComplete” tab after Clicking Here.

There are an infinite number of reasons people don’t pursue the facts necessary to make an informed decisions. Some of the reasons are even reasonably valid. (Of course, readers of this site value the access to information needed to make good decisions.) In reality, a majority of folks rely mostly on what they hear from their friends and neighbors, filtered through the their own life experiences.  Sometimes, people add what they learn on paper and online.  It often boils down to sound bites and choosing a side based on what your friends have chosen.

Here are some facts: In 2000 Kennedy-Jenks provided a report that has been the basis for the declaration of the Water Code 350 Emergency and the decision to pursue desalination. The report was part of developing a water master plan and included analysis of water use demand. It reported the average residential connection used about 9 units per billing cycle. They calculated a composite connection use of about 12 units, a number often given as “standard” use.  This “composite connection” was calculated

using the “mean annual” unit demand patterns, and assuming residential connections and commercial connections of 3,586 and 210, respectively, (i.e. their December 1999 values), the estimated residential, commercial, and total annual water demand are 578, 201, and 779 acre-feet, respectively. Dividing these values by the assumed number of connections produces annual residential and commercial unit water demand estimates of 0.161 and 0.959 acre-feet per connection, respectively.

In a recent study (Mayer et al, 1999), the indoor water requirements of 12 utilities were evaluated. One of the locations was Lompoc, California. The results of the evaluation are presented in Table 4-1. The mean daily per capita indoor water for the 12 locations was 69.3 gallons per capita per day (gpcd). The comparable use for Lompoc was 65.8 gpcd*, slightly less than the average. The indoor water uses are almost exclusively for human consumption and sanitation.

For comparison, the typical average annual water demand, both indoor and outdoor, for District customers is approximately 75 gpcd. Because a Dry Season water demand reduction of approximately 20 percent would be necessary to reach the indoor water use estimates, the declaration of a water shortage emergency for health and safety reasons would only be necessary for Stage 3.

*gpcd = gallons per capita per day

Translating gpcd into what you would see on your CCSD bill (which covers 2 months).  A CCSD billing unit is one hundred (100) cubic feet of water or 748 gallons.

65.8 gpcd = 5.4 units pcbm (per capita bi-monthly)

65.8 gpcd = 5.7 units pcbm (per capita bi-monthly)

75 gpcd = 6.1 units pcbm (per capita bi-monthly)

50 gpcd  = 4.1 units pcbm (per capita bi-monthly)

Seems like everyone is getting more conscious about water use. Just published in the Sacramento Bee: more comparisons of water use in a number of locations in California and around the world.

More data are available in the spreadsheets at Editgrid. I’ve compiled water use numbers as I’ve come across them in my research.