The Santa Cruz City Water Department’s service area is 12
square miles. Besides the City of
The agency started in the late 1800s as a private company.
In 1910, it became a city department. A critical event in the district’s history
was the 1976-77 drought, which left the department with a shortage of 38
percent of water supply. This was the worst drought in
The department’s water supply comes from these sources:
·
· Loch Lomond Reservoir (16 percent)
· Live Oak Beltz wells (7 percent)
·
This report investigates how the City of
“City of
Gary Fiske and Associates, Water Resources Planning and Management.
“City of
Toby Goddard, City of Santa Cruz Water Department Water Conservation Office, “Adequacy of Municipal Water Supplies to Support Future Development in the City of Santa Cruz Water Service Area,” March 2004.
1. Santa
Cruz City Water Department has 24,300 connections, serving 90,000 customers. It
is the largest water agency in
Response:
City of
2. The department takes 93 percent of its water supply from surface water. The remaining seven percent comes from wells (groundwater).
Response:
City of
However, annual production varies, but on
average the amount that the city gets from its wells is closer to 5%.
3. The water department depends on rainfall for 84 percent of its water supply.
Response:
City of
In truth, the city relies on rainfall for
all of its supply, but the “flowing sources” are certainly more quickly
impacted by lack of rainfall.
4. The water department’s current capacity is 4.3 billion gallons per year under normal weather conditions. Current total water demand is 4 billion gallons per year. This gives the system a cushion of 300 million gallons per year.
Response:
City of
5. Average daily demand is 12 million gallons (latest figures from 2000). Broken down seasonally, average summer demand is 15 million gallons per day; average winter demand is eight million gallons per day.
Response:
City of
6. Usage is divided as follows:
· Agriculture: 3 percent
· Business: 8 percent
· Single family residential: 77 percent
· Multi-family residential: 11 percent
Response:
City of
7. Average
daily residential water use per person is 138 gallons for the State of
Response:
City of
8. To
encourage conservation, water rates are divided into five tiers, with rates
increasing as more water is used. The average rate per billing unit (100 cubic
feet, or 748 gallons) is $2.76. Outside
Response:
City of
The “eight-percent profit” is probably more appropriately referred to
as the city’s “return on investment.”
9. The
average monthly residential bill for
Response:
City of
10. The drought of 1976-77 left the city 38 percent short of expected water for its customers. A combination of rationing and voluntary conservation was required.
Response:
City of
11. Water officials base their water demand projections on expected population growth of one-half percent per year, according to the city’s current General Plan.
Response:
City of
The demand
projections the city used reference the county, city, and City of
12. The following table summarizes projected water demand for the next 25 years. Water conservation has reduced the actual water demand in 2005 to 4 billion gallons.
|
2000 |
2005 |
2010 |
2015 |
2020 |
2025 |
2030 |
|
4,409 |
4,627 |
4,817 |
4,961 |
5,157 |
5,238 |
5,321 |
Response:
City of
13. Santa Cruz City Water Department has three options to balance water supply and demand:
·
Water
Conservation
The Santa Cruz City Council directed the Santa Cruz Water Department to implement a range of conservation measures. These included both negative and positive incentives. For example, the department uses a five-tier rate structure to encourage lower water use and also offers rebates for the installation of low-flow toilets.
Water savings are expected to increase to about 280 million gallons through the planning period (2005 through 2030), which is about five percent of demand. Annual conservation costs, including staffing, are between $600,000 and $1,000,000.
Response:
City of
The city agrees, with the possible exception of the term “negative”
used to describe the tiered rate structure. This rate structure is intended to
encourage conservation by ensuring that customers are mindful of water use. The
upper tiers have the effect of providing the funding for water conservation
programs so that higher use by certain customers can be offset through
conservation programs throughout. It is not intended to be “negative.”
Response:
City of
The City of
·
Water
Curtailment
The period of water curtailment, or rationing and conservation, typically runs May-October during drought years. Curtailment during a worst-year, peak season is expected to be 45 percent. If no action is taken, however, the city will eventually have difficulty meeting average year demands. By 2015, there will be a 90 percent likelihood of some level of curtailment during normal years.
Response:
City of
The Integrated Water Plan mentioned
elsewhere in this report proposes to provide 85% of average demand under all
hydrologic conditions.
Response:
City of
·
Supply
The department has been searching for new water supplies for the past 20 years. Possible alternatives have included building a dam, developing groundwater sources, limiting new growth and building a reclamation plant. Environmental, economical, technical and political factors have made this difficult.
Response:
City of
City of
Response:
City of
14. Even with its extensive water conservation programs, the city must develop new supplies as soon as possible. Additional supplies will be needed in the future. Today’s annual demand of 4 billion gallons is expected to increase to 5.3 billion gallons by 2030.[2]
Response:
City of
City of
Response:
City of
15. The
Response:
City of
16. UCSC recently announced plans to add another 6,000 students to its present enrollment of 15,000, for a total that is less than its projection when the university was founded.
Response:
City of
17. City water officials say that the system currently has enough capacity to supply the additional water the university will need. However, doing so would absorb most of the water available for other growth.
Response:
City of
The City of
18. A recent study examined the costs, effectiveness and effects of a wastewater reclamation plant and a desalination plant.[3]
Response:
City of
19. The study found that groundwater recharge and wastewater reclamation would be cheaper in the short term and would affect the marine environment less.
Response:
City of
The City of
20. The study found that a desalination project would cost less long term, would be easier to implement, have a lower impact on the groundwater basin and could have a relatively unlimited capacity.
Response:
City of
City of
21. The
California Department of Parks and Recreation opposes the use of reclaimed
wastewater at
Response:
City of
The California Department of Parks and
Recreation also notified the city that it owned the groundwater that underlies
the cultivated farmland and that it was not interested in conveying the
ownership of the groundwater to the city.
22. Presently, the department is trying to get approval to build a desalination plant. A desalination plant converts seawater to fresh water. Depending on the size of the project and the available power, it could provide an effectively unlimited supply of water to the district. The Soquel Creek Water District may join with the department in this project.
Response:
City of
It is absolutely not an “unlimited supply,”
as the department responded earlier.
23. The desalination project has been proposed by the water department and approved by the Santa Cruz City Water Commission and the Santa Cruz City Council. An environmental impact review has been completed and goes before the City Council in mid-June of this year. A 45-day public comment period will be followed by a decision of the city council. If approved, a pilot program at Long Marine Lab will be approved for one year. If satisfactory, the project will proceed to design, project environmental impact review and, ultimately, application for required permits from local, regional, state and federal agencies.
Response:
City of
City of
Response:
City of
No one has “approved” the desalination
option yet. The City Water Commission and the City Council only accepted the
final Integrated Water Plan and directed an environmental review of it.
24. The size of the desalination plant will depend on whether the council approves a project based on normal water use or drought conditions.
Response:
City of
It is not clear to the City of
Response:
City of
If what this finding is saying is that the
proposed size of the desalination plant is 1.5 million gallons per day (mgd)
with the potential expansion in 1 mgd increments to 4.5 mgd, then the
department agrees.
25. The city council has indicated it does not favor a drought-based project, because this would provide extra water. They see this as potentially growth inducing.
Response:
City of
As with the previous finding, it is not
exactly clear to the City of
Response:
City of
The City Council has repeatedly indicated
its preference for a supply project that can be responsive to growth, not ahead
of it. The current plan is intended solely to reduce the curtailment impacts in
drought from 45% shortages to no greater than 15% shortages. To the extent that
the plan does not call for 100% of average supply needs in drought conditions,
it does favor a plan that calls for drought reductions in customer use.
26. Building the smaller project would mean that customers would face at least a 15 percent water cutback during drought years.
Response:
City of
27. The cost of the desalination project will be between $15 and $40 million, depending on whether the project is small or large scale.
Response:
City of
There is no option to build a plant that
would cost only $15 million. The 2½-mgd plant is estimated to likely cost from
$30 million to $40 million.
28. Water customers would pay an extra $4 to $8 per month to fund a smaller desalination project that would still require a 15 percent water curtailment level during drought years. The cost of a system that would not require water curtailment would be $6 to $12 per month.
Response:
City of
It is
important to remember the dollar figures are very speculative. The basic
notion, however, is that a plant that provides for full supply in drought years
is more expensive than one that allows for some use curtailment.
29. Recent and projected water rate increases are as follows:
· 25 percent (May 2004)
· 20 percent (January 2005)
· 50 percent (2005-2009)
Response:
City of
30. The projected increase would fund capital improvements, as well as allow the department to seek bond approval to fund the desalination plant.
Response:
City of
1. Santa Cruz City Water Department customers do an outstanding job of water conservation.
2. Since customers are already conserving water extensively, water cutbacks during drought years will be more of a hardship to customers here than in water districts that conserve less.
3. The Santa Cruz City Water Department appears to be doing a conscientious and thoughtful job of planning for future water needs.
4. Developing new water supplies is critical to the city’s well-being.
5. New
water supplies will require both higher rates and the political will of the
city council and the voters of the City of
1. The Santa Cruz City Water Department should be commended for its work in planning for future water needs.
Response: City of
City of
Response: City of
The City of
2. Water officials and the Santa Cruz City Council should begin to build public support for new water supplies and the higher rates needed to fund them.
Response: City of
The recommendation has been implemented. The
City of
Response: City of
The recommendation has been implemented. The
City of
3.
The City of
Response: City of
The recommendation is in the process of
being implemented. The prospect of a 45% drought shortfall is a serious problem
that the city council is addressing with the Integrated Water Plan.
Response: City of
The recommendation is in the process of
being implemented. The prospect of a 45% drought shortfall is a serious problem
that the city council is addressing with the Integrated Water Plan.
4.
When planning for future water supplies, the City of
Response: City of
The recommendation has been implemented
using the water demands forecast in the current LRDP in the Integrated Water
Plan. To the extent that the university is engaged in planning for increased
water use, it should likewise consider the reality of limited city resources
and the impacts of its growth on those limited resources when the university is
doing its planning.
Response: City of
The recommendation has been implemented
using the water demands forecast in the current LRDP in the Integrated Water
Plan. To the extent that the university is engaged in planning for increased
water use, it should likewise consider the reality of limited city resources
and the impacts of its growth on those limited resources when the university is
doing its planning.
5. City officials should consider approving a drought-year based water-planning strategy so that citizens do not face unneeded water restrictions during drought years. Citizens should be rewarded for achieving a high level of conservation, not forced to undergo more severe water cutbacks during drought years.
Response: City of
The City of
Response: City of
The City of
Agency |
Findings |
Recommendations |
Respond Within |
|
|
13, 14, 23, 24, 25 |
1-5 |
60 Days ( |
|
Santa Cruz City Water Department |
1-30 |
1-5 |
90 Days ( |
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