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HomeMy WebLinkAbout1990-06-19; City Council; 10676; CARLSBAD'S GUARANTEED 10-DAY WATER SUPPLY PRIOR TO DEVELOPMENTk c u u .rl $4 u u) r=l Ccl 0 .rl u a 2 2 ! ? -4 G k a, k g0 c). cd -4 0 m *. mcn . *gs 00 mum \G \o !4 -4 \qaJ 19 sa rdJJ CUB CL-I hl alk OQ F "w" aly -4 E u om a, kk E a0 crd oa cdu g ad a, u us u ca alu 3 ox d ua, a p .rl u $40 a, u urn a0 rnm g a' g $g ha, Q) Ma) c) cd .d cd a, 7a c Ob E-l uo 24F: E 2.5 00 0 4N a .. z cncn \\ 11 \De cn\o 5 g z 3 0 0 z UP GARLSBAD - AGENIPBILL 1, ' DEPT. c;'@ AB# j'j d 7b TITLE: DEPT.Petti ne PRIOR TO DEVELOPMENT CITY n RECOMMENDED ACTION: MTG.~ ounqj Merlber CARLSBAD'S GUARANTEED 10-DAY WATER SUPPLY CITY P Discussion of questions Council Member Pettine has regarding the City's current requirement of a 10-day supply of water being guaranteed prior to approving more devel opment . ITEM EXPLANAT I ON : Council Member Pettine has requested that this item be placed on the City Council Agenda for discussion. address are as follows: 1. The specific questions he wishes to Do weather studies indicate a cyclical pattern of droughts and/or watc shortages for our region over the last 50-100 years? If so, how ofter and of what duration. Are present shortage and delivery systems adequate to handle future shortages? What is the rationale for our 10-day storage standard? Should the 10-day standard be increased? 2. 3. 4. If so, by how much? FISCAL IMPACT: None at this time. EXH I BITS : 1. Memo from Council Member Pettine to the City Manager, dated May 16, 1990. 0 0 May 16, 1990 TO : CITY MANAGER FROM: Council Member Mark Pettine Currently the City of Carlsbad requires a 10-day supply of water be guaranteed prior to approving more development. Please prepare an agenda bill which addresses the following issues: 1. Do weather studies indicate a cyclical pattern of droughts and/or water shortages for our region over the last 50-100 years? If so, how often and of what duration? 2. Are present storage and delivery systems adequate to handle future shortages? 3. What is the rationale for our 10-day storage standard? 4. Should the 10-day standard be increased? If so, by how much? I believe these matters should be reviewed by the Water Commission for possible recommendations to the Council. Respectfully submitted, /Y/uLk 9. MARK V. PETTINE Council Member a 0 June 26, 1990 Council Meeting Transcription - Byron Buck Kulchin: I had a question of Mr. Larson. Eric, does the California Watl Authority have any pol icing policies? Larson: That's a good question. We do have, from the County Water Authorit; we have a representative here this evening that might be able to let me knc that, and I really don't know. My understanding is, and I think you ai referring to the County Water Authority, on the Stage I, 11, I11 and IV, what hi been done is they have created the model resolutions, just as they have creatc model reclamation ordinances for cities to adopt and are asking the partners t do that on their own. There is not necessarily a restriction on that, but I' have to defer on that as far as what the actual policing powers, and I'd have 1 assume that the County Water Authority has got the ability to say we're an1 going to deliver so much to a certain entity, or a certain partner, and I don' know what that would be based on. Kulchin: The reason, let me just follow up with my second question, then I' appreciate any help from you sir. On our first month of our stage alert numbe 11, we did cut back, we didn't quite get to 10, we got 9.6. Now let's just sa that we get into a Stage 111 or a Stage IV. Will we who have done -- Carlsba got on the bandwagon very quickly -- will we be penalized in any way in terms c our water since we've all ready started to cut back as opposed to those citie that have not done anything on a volunteer basis? 1) 0 . Buck: I am Byron Buck, the Planning Director for the County Water Authorit, To answer the last question first, no, you would not be. As far as polici powers go, the water authority as a wholesale agency does not have any poli authority on individual retail users, the customer out there who may be hosi~ down his driveway illegally. What we do have is the ability to restrict flor to certain, to all of our member agencies, and allocate water on that basis. ’ we really rely on the retail agencies, such as the City, to impleme recommendations on drought response cutbacks. Kulchin: So let’s just say that the City of San Diego the largest one, continut not to really participate. They continue to do it on a volunteer basis, there’ no way that you could bring them in, back into the fold, so to speak. Buck: Well, not directly, in terms of forcing them to go to mandatory. Wei they not meeting our goals, and we have a lm goal overall and we really don care how people do it, its just as long as they do it, if they didn’t do it \ could certainly force them by having penalty pricing and tripling the rates fc what they’re using above the goals. Thats an action our Board would have 1 take. Kulchin: So that is a form of policing in a way. Buck: Yeah, it is, price is a very good incentive. Kulchin: OK. e e Lewis: Just one question before Mr. Pettine gets back on this, as far as supplier, that we as a retailer, you give us the water here in the North Count! do you give it on equal shares or on demand as to need? Do we get the sa1 amount as Vista, I mean do you give us so many feet per acre or how do you wo' that? Buck: We build a system and try to provide the watf resources based on the demands we have here in the region, that is our stat( objective under State law. We don't have a quota, the Water Authority used 1 have a preferential rights in its Act and that has been repealed by the Boar( We base water deliveries on need only. Its based upon demand. Lewis: So here in Carlsbad if we did restrict, say we did stop the perm. process, and Oceanside and the North County continues to go ahead with thei permit process, they could actually acquire as much water as they needed, base on the demand thats being - that you, the supplier, would give them. Is thz right? Buck: Yeah, thats correct. Thats why demand management, or, restrictions bas€ on the amount of water don't really work for growth management on a local levc - since you're tied into a network as was said, of 300 various water agencies, a1 the way up to the Metropolitan Water District, which has the charge of supplyin water for the whole region. Now, on a larger regional level, there are issue of water availability and growth management, and those, as was said, we ar dealing with, with SANDAG. 0 e Lewis: I have one other point then - suppose that we go to a third and almo a fourth and water becomes extremely scarce, would you still base it on supp and demand, or would you actually limit each community to what they have at th present time? Buck: No, it would go based on need again. The State Water Code, in fact statc that very clearly, that water in times of stress, has to be based on times ( need. The Stage IV is, the only time that we would envision that ever happenii is a major catastrophic failure, an earthquake that does something that nobo( expects and our planning process, on up from your 10 day storage, is to ha' storage within the County to provide the emergency storage needs based on a majl catastrophic failure of our aquaducts and on up to Metropolitan, its majl outages of the Colorado River aquaduct and the State water project having months storage for the entire region. Thats the only time we would ever envol a Stage I11 or Stage IV that we could, well actually a Stage IV, a Stage I11 . potentially for drought. From a supply perspective, if its a just drougl management thing, there are things we can do. We have fairly awesome polic powers in terms of condemnation rights, to go out and acquire the water we wou' need, and that would come from agricultural agencies, in an emergency. Lewis: supply the, ah, all of the communities around? So you can actually supersede the contracts that the farmers have W 0 Buck: Well, in the State water project, as we found out this year, the way . is set up is that they take the first 50% of any cutbacks before there are ai municipal and industrial cutbacks. So we are getting full deliveries from ti State water project site, this year. The Colorado River aquaduct is beii cutback because that is a Federal project and it has to do with the 7 State Inn1 State Compact. However, if we were, if the drought should say continue to fifth and sixth year and we’re getting just very low yields on these watershed! there‘s 3.85 million acre feet in the Imperial Valley, and their first priori1 on the Colorado River aquaduct, we go out with a lot of money out there, ai basically take land out of production for 1 year, just buy them out, and thi water ends up in the Colorado River aquaduct and in Southern California. Lewis: Then thats Buck: Thats an extreme sort of situation, but its something that can be don€ doesn’t require a change of use permit for the water or any thing else. Its ju: a strict cash for water transaction. Lewis: a 5 year supply of water available to us in different ways? Is that where Mr. Mamaux more or less picked up this idea where we ha\ Buck: Well, perhaps the best way to frame this is you’ve really got to make distinction between drought management and long term water supply planning. Wha we’ve got here now is four years, a fourth year, an unprecedented fourth year c drought. The Los Angeles aquaduct for the City of Los Angeles is way down, it also been restricted because of environmental constraints. Colorado Rivc 0 a aquaduct has also lost water for the first time in history, much due to Arizo taking it’s entitled share for the first time and lower yields there. Eric mentioned, we’ve had 20 years with really essentially no State water poli that’s visible to any of us on this level. There’s - we’ve had the luxury an over-built supply, even though we’ve had rapid growth for many, many yea now, we really haven‘t done a whole lot on a State wide level to increase t reliability of our supplies. That issue is coming to the fore now. We’re mu the same position in this County as we were in 1944 when the Water Authority w formed. We were tapped out on local supplies, we needed to go get import supplies. That bridge was crossed then, we’ve gotten to the point where we’ importing 90% of our supplies. There is water out there in the long term. We‘ to the point where we’re developing it in a multi-faceted way. There is single project thats going to solve our water supply problems. We’re doi things 1 i ke recl amat i on, demand management in terms of conservation, 1 ooki ng And agricultural transfers, we need to complete the State water project, ground wat management, desalination. All of those things will be the mix of our wat supply future. There’s a lot of water out there, now we need to really push t State along to develop that which is out there, in an environmentally sou manner, and look at managing what we have here. There is going to be a mid-te problem, we’ve had such rapid growth, and we’re getting problems in the Court terms of the LA aquaduct system, that the infra-structure may not be there f a short mid-term in the 90’s during drought years, and possibly even somewhat d years, to supply all the needs all of the time. So we need to have that syst catch up with it, and there really needs to Oe action on the State level to this. But, on terms of the overall perspective of water limiting growth, it not a problem. We’re really arguing about money. Water is very, very chea m 0 When you look at it, it’s 33 cents a ton delivered to your doorstep. You knl in those kind of human terms, you can’t get garbage taken away for 10 or 15. ’ we have a large capacity to increase the supply of water. We can deal wi desalination if we have to. Lewis: OK. Any other questions? Kulchin: Just 1 question. Tell me about, you talked about condemnation o condemnation rights. Could you just briefly go into that in terms of, you talk1 about agriculture farming? Buck: Yes, my understanding, my attorneys tell us, that the Water Authority c go outside it’s boundaries and condemn water rights. Under the State water COI primary use for water is municipal and industrial uses which is primarily wh we have here in San Diego County, over 80% of the uses. There is water out Imperial Valley, a huge amount of it, more than we would ever need for all t growth you could ever envision in this area, that we could go out and condemn portion of those rights to do it. We wouldn’t necessarily have to use or ev exercise that power, because I think they would recognize that we could do thi and they’d rather help us out in the long term and just make it a strict ca: transaction to get us through a drought situation. Long before we get to tha. there’s many conservation and water salvage projects that we could help . increase the efficiency of agricultural water use to increase the yield of tl supplies to the urban areas. Lewis: Mr. Larson? W 0 Larson: Yeah, would you comment just for a moment, too, because, and make SUI I understand it and (so everyone else knows) is the amount of water stored on ti Colorado River, there‘s a tremendous amount of water stored that we necessari don’t have a ”right to” because of what I’ve been told is the law of the rive And yes, right, everybody gets very patriotic about that, I guess. But there tremendous amounts of water over there that might actually belong to 0th agencies or states, they are not even using that water, its merely stored ther and if you would comment to, and I don’t know if you might know the answer this, its my understanding that the Secretary of the Interior always has tl ability to go in and take that water and give it to whoever has the need, shou‘ at those times, if we did have a crisis, or a serious emergency here in Southei California. Buck: Yeah, that‘s- a complex question. I’ll try to do the best I can with i. It’s, the Colorado River basin which has been historically our major water supp for this area, before the State water project, has long been recognized as have a large fluctuation in its hydrology in wet years and dry years. A lot storage, over 60 million acre feet, in other words, a hundred times what we u in a year, is stored on that system, the potential for it. Right now, there‘ about 40 million acre feet of water in storage. That storage has pretty muc been developed to even out the yield on a yearly basis, and it’s divided betwec upper basin states and lower basin states. And the lower basin gets a certa, allocation, that storage exists to provide 7 112 million acre feet on a long tei basis for the lower basin. California has the lions share of that, and of thi lions share most of it goes to agriculture in California. So there is a lot I water storage out there. The Secretary of the Interior does have the ability . 0 a allocate surplus water, but he is constrained by the Compact to provide no mor than 7 1/2 million acre feet on a 10 year average annually to the lower basin Were he to go beyond that it would have to be a national emergency, probabl declared by the President, and withstanding that, then I am sure you would se other States sue within the contract to preserve their rights and to preserv that storage, which also guarantees their water. There is water in the uppe basin that is not allocated corning out of Colorado, that just flows down th river and becomes, in times of wet years, surplus water. We’ve been 1 iving of that water for 20 years, since the California-Arizona decision in 1964. Ou rights on the Colorado River through much problem have been cut down to less tha half of what we traditionally have been using. This is the first year that we’v actually had a cutback, because of that situation, there’s been surplus water o the River. That had been recognized a long time ago, and the idea was to increas the yield of the State project, but that has since been hung up in bickering ii Sacramento for these many years. We’ve had the luxury of not needing it. We’rc getting to the point where we need it now. Decisions need to be made. Lewis: Mr. Pettine? Pettine: Well, I recall back in 1985 when representatives from your agency came to the City and said don’t worry, there’s no problem, we’ve got plenty of watei available. And your telling us tonight, I think you’re saying, there‘s plent; of water out there. Why are we in a Stage II? Buck: Well, again, thats the distinction between a drought problem, 4 years of drought, and long term water supply and management. In the long term we car 0 a increase the reliability of our water supply. We need to do those things. A 1 of those things are beyond our local control, and we need to have those issu brought to the fore in Sacramento. We can do a lot of things on the local lev that we haven’t done before. You look at the history of water development in S Diego. We started with all the cheap sources, the local drainages where tho waters were available right here, just by building small dams or cheap dam That water‘s available and cheap every year. Then we went to the next step going to the Colorado River and the State water project. Now we’re into doi things 1 i ke conservation demand management. Long term conservation programs 1 i retro-fitting toilets, doing turf audits, interior and exterior water use audit those sorts of things that are now cost effective, those are water sources f us and other types of developments in water and reclamation. What we need to is have this infra-structure catch up with the growth we’ve had and the loss water rights in other areas. So in the long term the water is there, we need merely plan ahead for the future. limiter on growth in Southern California. The water does not necessarily need to be Pettine: Well, I’m not sure that I fully understand all that, do we have problem? Buck: We have a problem today. The reason the Water Authority requested a Stal I1 alert was, as the ordinance said, its probable that we may not be able to me all demands. That’s, its probable not this year, but next year, were we to ha a fifth year drought, we would probably be 25% short. We‘re dealing with situation - - a I) Pettine (?): How much? Buck: system. Potentially 25% short within the Water Authority in Southern Californ Pettine: Within the next 12 months? Buck: Within the next 12 months, if we have another disastrous year like we d this year. We‘re dealing with a situation that hasn‘t happened in histor times, since the 1600’s. But, you know, if you wanted to put a growth moratorii on that, that’s not going to save us any water for next year, especially sin( all these agencies, Carlsbad and everybody else, is basically drinking from tt same pot. You go stop permits, its not going to increase your water liabilii one bit, You’ve got all the other agencies in Southern California that are goir to be growing as well. Pettine: I guess the question is why is Southern California growing if we ma be cut back. I suppose if we’re cut back 25% potentially in the next year, othe areas could be cut back in similar amounts. Is that right? Buck: Thats correct. Pettine; Doesn’t your agency and other agencies have a concern, that the 1arl use policies of different jurisdictions are putting more and more increase demand on your system? m e Buck: We do have a concern, certainly, but our charter is to supply the wat needs of the region, and that’s what we aim to do. Pettine: I know its nice to say that, but you say that and then you tell us into a Stage I1 water alert because the probability exists that our distri can’t supply our customers and if we go one stage beyond that into a Stage I you will not be able to meet all the demands of your customers. Buck: Well, Pettine: How do you juxtapose that with what your saying tonight? Buck: Well, its the reliability issue. We’ve had traditionally a very reliab water supply in Southern California. You look at any other city in the Unit States, major city, they‘re into this sort of rationing or cutback program usually after one bad year. We‘ve had four years to get to this situation, hasn’t happened since the 1600’s. Everybody is at the risk of the vagaries ( nature, We can’t control those things, we try to develop the system to meet tl needs as much as we can in every year that we can envision. build a system that in every event will supply you with 100% of the water, 101 of the time, you’ve got a very expensive system to build. We haven traditionally done that. Its been based on drought probabilities that have work out over the last 100 years. In climatological terms thats not a real long tim So we have a risk, in any given year, we’ve always had it, of drought, but il a short term thing, you can do it with short term management. You look at tl long term picture of how much water yield you need to develop and we’re doii If you‘re going io e + that, so we can supply the long term needs, if the public is willing to ! through with these programs. Now, if people want to use water for growl control, that brings in a whole other spin to it, and you can point to Sanl Barbara and their experience in doing that. All you get with that is a vel unreliable water system and not very good growth control. Pettine: Well, you say we have, this is unusual and that we’ve only had 4 year of drought and that hasn’t happened in years and years, and yet we have i appendix attached to one of our memorandums from our water district people, whic shows over the last 100 years that we’ve had periods of dry years that are f; in excess of 4 years. Greaney: Thats the rainfall record at San Diego. Buck: At San Diego, yes, and our system is, you can almost throw out San Dieg rainfall in terms of reliability of our system. We are a State water project i the Colorado River system. And if you match those two, a 4 year drought on a1 of those systems is absolutely unprecedented. Lewis; OK, are there any other questions? All right, thank you very much, an we appreciate the information you’ve given us and we appreciate your taking thc time to come down here. Mr. Pettine do have anything else to add to this, we dr have a speaker wishing to address this issue?