There are many things being said about our need for water, why we want water, who should decide and who should pay. Good decisions should not be based on hearsay or opinion. Things that are claimed or said should be checked and, if possible, verified before factoring them in as part of a valid decision making process.
Concerned Citizens for Paso Robles (CCPR) have made many incorrect claims to convince people to sign petitions to force Paso Robles’ water rates to a special election.
First, over a period of many months primarily three people have challenged the procedures used to set the rates to pay for the water we have already purchased, the pumps, pipes and treatment facilities to deliver that water to our citizens. Every objection has been answered either by our City Manager, City Attorney, city staff or me in public meetings with verbal reference to appropriate State publications, court decisions, etc. or in writing. The answers have been ignored and additional misinformation has been publicly presented to our citizens.
Misinformation presented to the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association (HJTA) by one of the leaders of CCPR caused a letter to be written to the City which was received in March 2008. That letter quoted extensively by CCPR was recanted by the letter writer at the HJTA as the only way to charge for these services following our City Attorney’s response.
CCPR were answered and referred to the “Proposition 218 Implementation Guide” which refuted most of their uninformed claims.
The objections they have made regarding the use of Revenue Bonds rather than General Obligation Bonds was also answered by referring them to p. 42 of “California’s Water: An LAO Primer” published by the California Legislative Analyst’s Office (see footnote #7 below to access the full report on line). That page says these are an appropriate way to fund infrastructure and, “These bonds also do not require voter approval.”
CCPR went to the same book and quoted it in an ad run by CCPR on February 20, 2009, at the bottom of page A3 of The Tribune. The ad said: “Government may not impose fees to finance the future expansion of a water system.” And referred to page 56. This water rate does not finance any future expansion. The future expansion for new subdivisions, annexations, etc. are paid by a separate developer fee. However, what they quoted is followed on Page 56 by stating that future expansion is paid by developer fees and says that a further discussion regarding Proposition 218 follows below. The two sections “below” regard “Stormwater Services” and “Flood Control Programs” not drinking water!
In fact, CCPR totally ignored p.58 which lists many things paid for in water rates, including: “water transfers and contracts”, “Capital investment in conveyance infrastructure”, “Investment in and maintenance of local or regional water distribution infrastructure (such as storage facilities, pipelines, and pumps).” And “Capital investment in wastewater treatment infrastructure and related operating expenses.” Read it for your self on line (footnote #7).
The same misinformation was contained in a letter to the editor of The Tribune, printed on p. B4 of the February 25, 2009, edition. That letter at least quoted the next sentence as well but still ignored the parentheses and p. 58. We have no idea how many people were mislead into signing the petition based upon misleading or wrong information.
The City and your Council have acted honestly, openly and legally in every particular we have been aware of throughout the entire process. I wish I could say the same about those who would jeopardize the present citizens and the future of this city.
Some people are saying that the vineyards have come and taken too much of our water and should pay for our Nacimiento Pipeline.
First, by law it isn’t “our” water, it’s theirs. We are only allowed to take what is safely there that isn’t used by them. It’s the law.
Second, asking someone else to pay for something we own or use is no different than asking for government subsidies or welfare. Asking government to make you pay for someone else or to ask someone else to pay for you is not right.
Third, the belief that the vineyards have taken all of the water is incorrect. Increases in the amount of vineyard acreage from 1969 to 2004 do not correlate with the increased water usage from the basin. What correlates much better is the number of new residences that were approved by the county during that period as compared with the number of homes approved and built in the cities.
More water is being used by homes and a small amount of commercial in the County than is being used by the cities for all uses (commercial, industrial, recreation and residential).
Each jurisdiction has its own governing body. The City Council can make rules for the city. The Board of Supervisors makes the rules for the unincorporated areas. Cities are incorporated. The rest of the county is not. We cannot force conservation nor bill for water or the Nacimiento Project in the county area. The county is actually paying for part of the project through fees collected in the unincorporated community of Templeton for water to be delivered to Templeton water users.
Grapes are clearly not the primary problem. However, no matter what the cause, the studies show that with out the use of Nacimiento water the aquifer will decline at a rate of 3,800 af/yr but with the use of Nacimiento water in Paso Robles, Atascadero and Templeton the aquifer will replenish itself at a rate of 2,600 af/yr. However, our newly proposed plan could reduce that replenishment amount to only 600 af/yr. If we, the users, don’t respond to the conservation portion of the proposal.
[I’ve had a request to give all of my sources for coming to these conclusions. I attempted to respond personally to that request but the effort takes over two hours just to compile and the bibliography is very long. For the agricultural aspects, I have in my file the county’s reports going back to 1951. For the water reports, back to the 1960’s. There are dozens of them containing over 25,000 pages of material, including statistics, engineering, geology and soils opinions and facts. If there are any other requests for that, I will take the time to compile and list the pertinent ones here. They do look at a broader area than just Paso Robles. Most of them come from the California Department of Water Resources or the California Department of Water Quality. Some are from the United States Department of the Interior, and counties of Monterey and San Luis Obispo as well as AMBAG and staff reports and studies from the cities of San Luis Obispo and Paso Robles.]
Some say we should use desalinization and some say we should create a new dam and lake of our own.
Those are interesting ideas. All of them were looked at in the 1980’s. Ten alternatives were examined. Desalination was deleted from consideration because of “high energy cost”. The cost of a pipeline twice as long as the Nacimiento pipeline was not even considered. Orange County did get a demonstration grant to put in a reclaimed water, desalination, system which works at a cost of nearly half a billion dollars. Even on a scaled down basis, the fixed base costs make it more expensive than Nacimiento water.
Nacimiento water came in as the second best choice behind what was then considered the lowest cost most reliable alternative: the State Water Project. That belief has since been disproven due to the unreliability of State Water and court restrictions.
Some people say it is unfair to raise the rates by so much without public hearings before the decisions on buying the water and choosing a method and amount to pay for it.
Since the early 1980’s there have been dozens of meetings open to the public with between 50 and 200 attending each meeting held in Paso Robles, Atascadero and San Luis Obispo. People from Paso Robles were at every one of them. The newspapers carried stories with headlines proclaiming the popularity and enthusiasm of the people for the studies and the project proposals.
It wasn’t until after the costs were known and the bill was coming due that objections were heard. Most of those objecting to no voice in the matter didn’t attend those meetings or hearings because they didn’t live here and, therefore, didn’t know about the meetings and hearings.
The present City Council has enforced the General Plan requirements and policies of the City. Rates have been set without subsidies in nearly all cases. New construction is paying its own way without subsidies, except when a subsidy is required by State law for low and moderate income housing.
On September 16, the City Council, on my motion, rescinded the proposed rate after a long public process of letting our democratic processes function to explore additional possibilities.
A different and lower set of rates will be coming forth shortly to recognize an improved time line that includes significant conservation efforts. Through that effort we must reduce our need for water by at least 2,000 acre feet per year, reducing our treatment plant needs and costs and spreading costs over a longer future time line.
Some say that the people should make the decisions and that we must let the people vote in a general election on the rates. That is not the type of vote called for by State law in the case of water. The procedure being used is the procedure laid down by recent court decisions and recent laws passed by the Legislature and signed by the Governor.
The people have had the right, throughout the process, to make the decisions and they have made them according to their requirements to provide for, protect and defend the health and safety of the community. They have done so through their elected representatives, as provided for in our Constitution. The representatives made the decisions after weighing the evidence and hearing from their constituents during the workshops and public hearing process. The current status of the rates is proof that the process works and also that is a costly one. The democratic process alone has caused expenditures in excess of half a million dollars. It has also created the opportunity for future savings in excess of $40 million. That is a good return on investment and validates the entire process.
The people did take unto themselves the right to approve certain decisions by passing an initiative. Proposition 218 specifically excluded water from the voting process. However, a citizens group challenged that exclusion in court. They lost the first case and the court said water is excluded. They filed another suit a few years later and the court, in that case, said it does apply. Since that court decision went into effect the City of Paso Robles has followed the requirements according to the procedures laid down by the State.
Initiatives cannot be altered by any legislative body. Those decisions can only be altered by the courts or the people by passing an overriding initiative.
A vote of the people shifts the responsibility to care for the health and safety of the community from elected representatives to the voting public. Some of those voters will be uninformed or misinformed; some will simply vote their personal pocket book position. If they fail in their responsibility to properly care for the health and safety of the community or make bad decisions, their actions can take years to be rectified (Los Osos is the text book case).
Some people are asking why the City can’t use its $70 million in reserves to pay the bill and not charge the water users.
First, that would constitute a subsidy for water users. Those who don’t use much water would be subsidizing those who use large amounts of water or who actually waste it.
Second, there is not $70 million in AVAILABLE reserves. Most of our reserves are in specific and separate accounts. It is money paid by users for specific benefits to be delivered at some time in the future. The city holds that money in trust and cannot spend it for anything other than what it is designated for. Most of that money is invested in interest bearing accounts to finance homes bought with government loan guarantees through FHA or the VA. It can be liquidated when needed for its specific purpose. Our maximum discretionary reserves are about $5.7 million. That is the money we used to immediately react to the earthquake at the end of 2003. Had we “fixed” the parking lot ourselves at that time, instead of working through FEMA for federal help, it would have wiped out all of our reserves.
As a fiscally responsible legislative body it is imperative that we maintain the integrity of a reasonable reserve account. The present economy has created a situation where it may be necessary for us to call upon some of those reserves to maintain normal, basic municipal services in the next year or two. I pledge to avoid that if it is prudently possible.
However, in the event that the newest proposal comes forth as represented at our September 16th meeting, we will use about $11 million of our Nacimiento Water Project fund to build the “skid water treatment facilities” to treat the first half of the allocation and eliminate the need to finance and build the full treatment plant at this time. That should produce about a $40 million savings in the future.
Are there other questions that people have? There probably are. As I become aware of them, if they are reasonable and not just argumentative, I will attempt to research and answer them.
To check figures and statements in this article refer to:
- “Groundwater Rights in California - Background and Issues” Staff Paper #2 by Anne J. Schneider commissioned by the Governor’s Commission To Review California Water Rights Law
- Department of Agriculture, County of San Luis Obispo, Agricultural Products reports for 1965, 1969, 2003 and 2004
- California Department of Water Resources, Bulletin 118, California’s Groundwater, update 2003
- December 2, 2004 “Paso Robles Groundwater Basin Study” by Fugro and ETIC Engineering
- “San Luis Obispo County Master Water Plan Update”, March 1986, by the California Department of Water Resources
- State Water Resources Control Board, Water Right Order 89-25, Exhibit A “Declaration of Fully Appropriated Stream Systems, August 22, 1991”
- http://www.lao.ca.gov/2008/rsrc/water_primer/water_primer_102208.pdf is the web site for the State of California Legislative Analyst’s Office’s “California’s Water: An LAO Primer.”