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Pleasanton residents will have to wait another month to find out if the City Council will approve a resolution to declare a water shortage that would force the city to continue asking people to reduce their usage by 15% with city wells being shut down due to PFAS contamination.
According to a supplemental memorandum that City Manager Gerry Beaudin provided to the council prior to Tuesday’s public meeting, the resolution was pulled from the agenda and moved to one of the two meetings in May because staff received additional information related to water conservation options that same day.
The reason the water shortage declaration was initially going to be presented to the council — at the same meeting when drought restrictions were to be formally lifted — was because of infrastructure limitations that the city is facing, namely the lack of groundwater due to PFAS chemicals.
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, Nos. 5 and 6, were also take offline 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, according to city staff, who were looking to continue the 15% reduction in potable water usage from residents.
According to the staff report for Tuesday’s council meeting, 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. Zone 7-supplied water typically accounts for 80% of the city-provided potable water supply.
However, Zone 7’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 city 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 were planning to ask residents to voluntarily continue limiting their water usage, the resolution proposed Tuesday was also going to 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.
On Oct. 5, 2021, the council adopted an ordinance declaring a local drought emergency and adopted a resolution declaring a Stage 2 water shortage, which mandated a 15% reduction in water usage.
Then on March 15, 2022, the council adopted a resolution activating Stage 2 drought rates to “achieve the mandatory water conservation target and to offset revenue loss to sustain the city’s water enterprise.”
But thanks to the recent rain and Sierra Nevada snowfall, the council unanimously voted to end the city’s local drought emergency — which also got 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.
The approved consent item also terminated the city’s mandated 15% reduction in water usage.
City Councilmember Valerie Arkin, however, did ask about several questions that the council received from community members who were wondering why they would drop the mandatory 15% reduction in water usage.
“The state of California and Zone 7, who’s our local water agency, are all lifting — or are in the process of lifting (the drought emergency), so we will be lifting the drought emergency at the same time,” Beaudin said during the consent calendar item. “The need to conserve is still great … This is the obligatory and required mandate to reduce water consumption and so (while) the need will no longer be there from a state or from a water agency perspective, it does not mean that we don’t want to continue to use a precious resource like water in a conservative manner.”
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.
“Staff will monitor the financial impact of the requested 15% water conservation and provide a near-term update to the City Council,” according to the staff report.
The plan was also to have staff begin notifying water customers of the voluntary 15% water reduction through various marketing means if the council decides to approve the resolution as is during the May meeting when the item comes back to the dais.
So 4 years ago a well was taken offline and no solution has been found? Are we just ignoring the problem? Why doesn’t the article mention anything about bringing the wells back online?
According to the Pleasanton website “Wells 5 and 6 are still “In Service” with the SWRCB since currently below response levels, but have not been operated since November 2022.”
“In September 2022, the City Council authorized staff to proceed with performing a Water Supply Alternatives Study.” – where do we stand on this study?
It’s hilarious that the council can’t make up their minds to render a decision that all citizens in Pleasanton “can make their own decision” as to whether or Not “they” want to Save Water! Think about that for a moment, before you break out in Loud Laughter!
@LanceM oh, a solution has been found, it’s just a matter of finding the money to pay for it. Water Operations at the City of Pleasanton has had no department head since the previous one retired in June of 2022. The head of engineering retires in a month or so. The article doesn’t mention wells coming back online because one option under discussion (we have a consultant, Brown and Caldwell, being paid $1/4 million + $100K for legal consult) is to abandon those wells and drill new ones in a contaminant-free location.
Until the consultant comes back with some results and recommendations, no decision will likely come any time soon. And without a knowledgeable department head, making a decision on whether to act on the consultants’ findings will be tricky at best. It is easier for council to dole out money for amenities like a third skate park and a long-neglected old building that can’t be used because it isn’t ADA-compliant and the neighbors don’t want to give up anything to allow for parking to make it really useful. Besides, those things are fun. Water is just boring, complicated, expensive, and taken for granted. Never mind that 83,000 residents expect to have safe water in sufficient quantities to live and conduct business here.
The city website was supposed to be improved and made more user-friendly, too. We’ve been hearing that since at least 2016, and it is still unwieldy, awkward, has broken links and misinformation 7 years later.
Priorities are in serious need of an overhaul, and the council and city manager need to step back and take care of the important stuff first. Without reliable water, none of us can survive. If we want our city to be here and remain the great place it has been, our leaders must get their heads out of the sand and tend to what really matters to all of us. Lest the Pleasanton we know and love simply shrivel and die.
@dknute: I’m much closer to tears than Loud Laughter. So should you be.
The problem is the 3 ineffecitve council members. Testy Testa is too rude to listen. Queen Karla has anger management issues. And SimpleArkin does not have enough intelectual brain power to understand the issues.
We need a new Pleasanton Council.
The question is where is our Erin Brockovich to help us sue DuPont or whomever put the chemicals in our groundwater. Or have they already payed off the right politicians?
EPA’s New Rule Does Not Address Drinking Water.
Human exposure to PFAS is widespread. People are most likely exposed to these chemicals by consuming contaminated water or food, using products made with PFAS or breathing air contaminated PFAS.
One report by the Center for disease Control and Prevention, using data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), found PFAS in the blood of 97% of Americans.
PFAS molecules have a chain linked carbon bond and fluorine atoms. Because the carbon-fluorine bond is one of the strongest, these chemicals do not degrade easily in the environment.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has introduced a new final rule, does not ban the production and distribution of PFAS chemicals.
The Pleasanton city council ongoing, unprecedented, polarization impedes the city’s capabilities to take affirmative action to protect the city’s population. The liability sets squarely with the city council.
There is another group of Americans threatened by PFAS chemicals and they have not yet been born.
In 2005 and 2009 Labatory tests commissioned by Environmental Working Group, Commonweal and Rachel’s network found PFOA, PFOS and other PFAS chemicals in the umbilical cord samples from babies born in the US.
The tests prove the shocking truth that American babies are born pre-polluted with PFAS and other toxic chemicals, which pass from the mothers to fetuses through the umbilical cord.
The Pleasanton city council majority voted to spend millions on century house, a skate park, while not working together to resolve Pleasanton’s water problem.