|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
The Pleasanton City Council is set to discuss a resolution Tuesday that would declare a water shortage due to the city’s wells remaining inactive and continue to ask residents to voluntarily reduce their water usage by 15%.
In 2019, the city-operated Well 8 was shut off after PFAS, otherwise known as forever chemicals, levels were detected in the groundwater. Then in 2022, the city’s other groundwater wells 5 and 6 were also shut off when city staff found that the PFAS levels in those wells also exceeded state safety levels.
Because Pleasanton took all three wells out of service, the city now is in a position where it can’t produce the 3,500 acre-foot groundwater supply, roughly 20% of the city’s water, which came from these wells — which is why city staff are looking to continue the 15% reduction in potable water usage from residents.
According to the staff report, the city will be fully reliant on the Zone 7 Water Agency’s water turnouts — which are connections throughout the city to the agency’s regional distribution system — to make up for the missing 20% that would have come from the groundwater wells.
However, the agency’s supply will still not be enough to meet this summer’s peak water demand according to testing that was done by Zone 7 alongside the Dublin San Ramon Services District.
“The results show that the turnouts can produce enough flow to meet demands experienced during the current mandatory 15% drought conservation mandate,” the staff report states. “However, the turnouts cannot meet demand experienced prior to drought conditions, so continued conservation remains necessary to reduce summer peak water demand because of water distribution capacity limitations related to the city’s groundwater wells not being in operation due to the detection of PFAS.”
But while staff are asking residents to continue limiting their water usage, it is important to note that the resolution does coincide with the announcements of the city, the state and Zone 7 all lifting their drought emergencies in light of the recent atmospheric river storms that drenched the Bay Area and most of California over the last couple of months.
The council will be voting on ending the city’s local drought emergency — which would also get rid of the Stage 2 drought rates — to coincide with Zone 7 lifting its emergency declaration as part of its consent calendar during Tuesday’s meeting as well.
According to the staff report, however, the issue isn’t that regional water supplies have been replenished thanks to the rain — the issue is that the city’s water infrastructure is still limited due to the wells being inactive.
“Despite improved water supplies, the City is experiencing infrastructure limitations that reduce the amount of water available to the distribution system,” the staff report states.
While the resolution to declare a water shortage for infrastructure limitations doesn’t necessarily have any direct financial impacts, according to the staff report the continued water conservation will result in a reduction to the city’s Water Enterprise Fund.
After the meeting, city staff will begin notifying water customers of the voluntary 15% water reduction through various marketing means.
City council: The City Council meeting is scheduled to begin at 7 p.m. Tuesday (April 18). The full agenda can be accessed here.
In other business
* Despite the recent winter rain storms having helped city staff push to end the local emergency drought, the city is still dealing with the damages caused by those storms — such as with the Pleasanton Pioneer Cemetery.
According to the staff report, the cemetery sustained serious damage to its staging and storage area on March 14 after a grove of eucalyptus trees on the south side of the cemetery fell down.
“Six eucalyptus globulus trees fell on the cemetery hillside and the storage/staging area and two additional eucalyptus globulus trees were at risk of failing without immediate removal or pruning,” according to the staff report.
That’s why as part of the consent calendar, the council will be voting on establishing a new capital project — Cemetery Storm Repairs and Renovations — in order to reallocate $75,000 from the Pleasanton Pioneer Cemetery Masterplan Implementation Reserve Fund for the emergency tree services.
According to the staff report, there is over $587,000 available in the Pioneer Cemetery Masterplan Implementation Reserve.
The city will be looking to enter into a contract with West Coast Arborists, Inc. for these tree services.
* The council will be receiving an informational report on the 2023 Eastern Alameda County Human Services Needs Assessment, which includes an overview of the project scope and status.
Since its finalization in 2012, Pleasanton has been using the 2011 Eastern Alameda County Human Services Needs Assessment — which was based on the 2003 assessment — to allocate grant funding to nonprofit service providers.
But since most of the Tri-Valley has changed since the early 2000’s, Pleasanton has been collaborating with the cities of Dublin and Livermore to update that 2011 assessment.
The three cities met during a joint meeting in November and have been working on the different phases of the project since then. According to the staff report, the project is currently in phase three, which includes committee development and qualitative data collection.
The total cost of the project has a cap of $234,467, which includes a 15% contingency. All three cities will be equally sharing the cost.
“Pleasanton’s one-third portion shall not exceed $78,155 ($67,962 plus contingency),” according to the staff report. “Funding for this project is included in the Fiscal Year 2022-23 adopted operating budget.”
* The council will be looking at allocating a total of $1,234,813 to fund various programs after council members review a summary of applications for the 2023-24 Housing and Human Services Grant and the Community Grant programs.
The Housing and Human Services Grant (HHSG) program, which received 30 applications, provides funding for a range of agencies serving a variety of community needs while the Community Grant (CG) program, which received 16 applications, serves the arts, culture and youth categories.
“This report summarizes the applications that were received for the HHSG and CG programs and provides a funding recommendation from the respective program advisory commissions and staff to allocate funds for the fiscal year beginning July 1, 2023,” according to the staff report.
The total funding for both programs has been included in the proposed fiscal year 2023-24 budget.
As a separate agenda item, the council will also be looking at the allocation of federal Community Development Block Grant funds as part of the “allocation of Housing and Human Services Grant (HHSG) funding to local non-profit agencies.”
If water is still this much of an issue than put a stop on all construction of low income housing.
We have been under 15% mandatory water use reductions for a few years now. While we had a brief respite from 2017 to 2020, the latter was the targeted date from which reductions were required, so the city is already in its 3rd year of the most recent mandatory reductions. And 2020 volumes were already lower than they had been prior to the previous period of drought. As a result, continued reductions of water use, even during the summer months, shouldn’t create any further reductions to the Water Enterprise Fund. That ship has already sailed. Many lawns have been converted already, and one can expect more will be completed over the next few months.
Continuing the City’s drought surcharge, however, will surely result in push-back from ratepayers, just as it did when Zone 7 refused to allow its drought surcharge to sunset in 2016. Governmental agencies need to cease using Covid and drought as scapegoats for increasing a wide variety of fees, adding to the already high costs of living in our community. It would seem prudent that those in charge quit prioritizing fun things (do we really need a third skate park?) for a few over necessities for us all.
California may be out of a drought, but Pleasanton’s water supply problems won’t end until the city’s three wells can be used once again. (Lucky for us that Zone 7 can supply additional water this year, but what about in years to come?) The city should keep the water conservation mandate in place and earmark excess use fees for the construction of a facility that removes PFAs from our wells so we can use them once again. I’d also throw in a water facility fee on new construction. And I agree with the previous comment about the skate park and will add one more: The Century House. Now is not the time to look back; we need to prepare for times ahead.
No Century House until the wells have been restored. Then work on the All Abilities Playground. Next the Skate Park. I dare the city to do a survey to see who even knows what the Century House is and how residents would prioritize it against water and playgrounds.