When urban water districts using Hetch Hetchy water, the Coastside County Water District being one of them, push for more water via the system to serve growth and development, considerations of responsibility and sustainability are seldom heard.

Freshwater sources for the entire state of California are already oversubscribed—unsustainably overdrawn. All but a couple of the state’s rivers are disrupted by dams. Now, whenever a water district seeks more water from somewhere else in the state, they act blatantly to harm that other place to serve themselves. Interwoven combines of urban political power and wealth rule, and they prefer to bully more water out of other places rather than conserve to make do with the water they already have. (And, of course, there is no increased wealth to be had in reaching a sustainable population size and level of resource usage and then maintaining it.)

The City of San Francisco, owner-operator of the Hetch Hetchy System, is currently proposing expanded withdrawals from the already degraded Tuolumne River, the source of its water. Destruction of a valley inside a national park and the slaughter of one of the central state’s best salmon runs are only part of the story. Over 60 percent of the Tuolumne’s water is already being used to serve development and agriculture. San Francisco’s needs being somewhat static, the additional water would be distributed almost entirely to meet growing demands by the several dozen water districts outside the city that are customers. CCWD is one of these. Killing an ecosystem to water more lawns.

People in Half Moon Bay and El Granada with a modicum of responsibility and common sense might wish to go to http://www.tuolumne.org to learn more about the current and projected consequences of what they are participating in. Learn what people elsewhere have been doing to restore what is left of the Tuolumne. Learn why the government of a small, rural county opposes the withdrawals and what the negative effects on that county’s economy would be. In other words, learn a bit about the gluttony of growth in an overpopulated region and the harm it does. Then consider your role in it all and what you might do about it.

Carl May

Thanks for calling this to everyone’s attention, Carl! The impact of our unsustainable ways is just dawning on the politicians and policy makers of this state. So far there’s been little courage to talk about changing anything other than growing more dams that will further erode the environment.

CCWD informed customers last week that because of the apparent drought we’re experiencing, customers likely will be asked to curtail water use by 20% if we don’t see a return to average rainfall conditions soon. This is no surprise given the previously truncated rainy season that ended in March, and now a rainless November, not a promising way to begin a new wet season.

CCWD obtains at least 70% of its water from Hetch Hetchy and wants to expand its draw further while the reality of a diminished snowpack shows this is untenable. Most of us are happy turning the water on whenever we want as a thoughtless action. Given the cost and changes coming, we’re all going to have to pay a lot more attention to this issue than we ever did in the past.

While this does not directly address the Tuolumne problem….

I have been trying to address the problem of making the CCWD rate structure more friendly to the low water consumption life style.

Presently there is a $19.70 fixed bi-monthly charge. The crossover point where the fixed charge equals the usage charge is 6.12 HCF or 4570 gallons per 2 months. (The 0-8 HCF rate is $3.22 each and the 9-25 HCF rate is 3.55 each.). I am asking the CCWD to make the fixed monthly charge equal to the usage charge for households using less than the crossover point quantity of water. That means, for users in the low water consumption regime, each HCF not used reduces the water bill by $6.44. The low water consumption users are still paying $6.44 per HCF used… that is a lot…. but they are also getting consistent financial return on the investments required to not use water.

For instance, recently my family of 2.5 or 3 people got by on 9 HCF (for 2 months).

It is possible for our family to use less, but only if we invest some money or effort. Some example projects are: Installing a waterless garden, using a pressure washer, capturing rain, flushing toilets with shower water,  or working and living out of town for part of the week or month. 

The problem is, the fixed monthly charge just wipes out the home economics of doing positive things to use less water. So I am proposing to cap the fixed charge and make it possible for a good fraction of the Coastisde community to invest in a variety of low water consumption lifestyles and projects.

I will write more when the committee begins to meet.

This topic is sure to remain a real hot button. What far too many of our fellow voters feel about all this is that the guy down the street should be responsible for conservation and driving the Prius. And the more stressed and financially tapped out everyone becomes over a variety of issues, the more people will just feel more justified in maintaining some comfort level that will make it all go away; that is until some agency forces them into compliance.

Lee, that was a great suggestion.

Lee raises some interesting questions about basic monthly service charges versus consumption charges.

At the December 2007 Coastside County Water District meeting, the Board of Directors discussed the possible drought impacts on the district. A major concern focused on what a 20% cutback in water use - and hence a 20% cutback in consumption charge revenues - might mean to the district. Ironically, when consumption is reduced by drought, the effect may be to raise rates!

Public water supply infrastructure is usually constructed and financed using “connection charges” or some equivalent mechanism, where each property pays a share of the capital costs for the facilities needed to serve that property. Actual usage cannot be predicted, so connection charges are usually based on some uniform factor (such as meter size) roughly corresponding to anticipated demands on the water system. This usually biases the capital costs towards residential properties. A typical residential customer might use 250 gallons per day, but pay nearly the same connection charge as a commercial customer that uses 2,500 gallons per day - even though the commercial customer obviously requires 10 times the supply capacity, 10 times the pumping capacity, 10 times the distribution capacity, 10 times the storage capacity, etc.

Monthly (or bi-monthly) billing rates are typically set to include both a “demand charge” that ideally represents the fixed costs of maintaining the water system, together with a “consumption charge” based on actual water usage that ideally represents the incremental costs of producing and delivering that water. Employee salaries and depreciation expenses, which are fixed, would thus be covered by the demand charge, and costs of purchasing water, pumping it, treating it, etc., which vary with actual use, would be covered by the consumption charge.

When rates are carefully structured, the total revenue from demand charges covers the fixed costs of the water system, and the total revenue from consumption charges, which varies with actual usage, covers the variable costs. Perhaps the demand charges could be distributed among customers in a manner that encouraged conservation, just as the stepped consumption charges are intended to accomplish. A possible mechanism could base the demand charge in part on average actual consumption over some prior period. A customer who cut consumption in half would thus eventually see a reduction in the demand charge, as well as savings in the consumption charge, thus promoting efficient water use and conservation.

I may even suggest this idea to my own board!

Paul Perkovic, Montara Water and Sanitary District board member

Here is what a more responsible water district sucking the resource from the Hetch Hetchy system advocates:
http://www.tuolumne.org/content/fmd/files/2008%2006%20LTCWD%20Resolution%20No%20197.pdf