Water systems that get their water from the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir, such as the Coastside County Water District, will get no new water in the next ten years, and will see their cost for Hetch Hetchy water double over the next ten years. The new rates will pay for a series of seismic upgrades, reports Julia Scott in the County Times. Montara Water and Sanitary District gets all it water from wells in the district.
The staff of the [San Francisco Public Utilities Commission] is backing a regional water supply plan that would avoid the controversial environmental pitfall of having to take water from the Tuolumne River to quench the thirst of a growing Bay Area population, principally by “finding” more water through conservation, groundwater pumping and using recycled water for golf course irrigation. The Tuolumne is a federally protected river. [...]
“This project assumes that we would not have to cut back more than 20 percent, even in a drastic drought scenario. It’s bringing the system toward more reliability so we don’t have to do mandatory rationing,” said Ed Harrington, general manager of the SFPUC.
The water plan pushes many crucial decisions to 2018, such as deciding where the Bay Area will get all the water it needs in 2030 and beyond. Water officials changed the plan to focus on 2018 instead of 2030 to gain the support of environmental groups, without which the crucial water safety projects cannot proceed.
The Tuolomne River Trust has criticized the report for not taking the impact of climate change sufficiently into account.
For more details on the proposed water system improvement program, go to http://sfwater.org.
