By Julie BUTCHER

Responding to community input and pressure and buoyed by funds available from the federal
MTBE mitigation program, the board of directors of the Crescenta Valley Water District (CVWD) voted unanimously on Tuesday night to temper the proposed water rate increase of 6.9% and instead adopted a budget that includes a 5.5% increase. The new rate will go into effect on bills issued after July 1. The district projects that bills for its 8,000 customers will go up $4 per month, or $8 bi-monthly, on average.

According to the District, a budget workshop was announced in March, financial information was posted on the CVWD website, special invitation letters were sent, and phone calls were made to those who attended and signed in to last year’s hearings. The CV Town Council was notified; notices were mailed to every customer.

The CVWD board of directors held a community meeting on June 12 to hear from the public and their customers about the proposed rate hike. Consistent with the Prop 218 requirements for notice and outreach, that meeting was followed by another meeting on June 26 for final customer input before voting on this year’s budget.

Foothill Municipal Water District (FMWD) directors Kathy Ross and Richard Atwater updated the CVWD board on FMWD and Metropolitan Water District (MWD) plans including a pilot set to test the use of stormwater runoff to irrigate median islands.

“Watch for Metro’s new campaign to encourage water conservation 365 days a year,” Ross reported.

Atwater advised that water levels are at historic lows and that “if it stays dry, we’ll be pumping water out of storage and looking at emergency lows. Let’s keep our fingers crossed for the next couple of years. Whether it’s a wet or a dry year, there’s no drop that we can waste.”

Atwater also reported on work projected for the coming decade known as the “Delta Fix.”

“It’s a generational infrastructure investment, the kind we haven’t seen since the 1960s work on the California Aqueduct. It’s anticipated to cost between 4% and 4.5% for the next decade. Water is expensive,” said Atwater. “The good news is that our efforts towards conservation are working. With about the same population, we’re using water here at 1950 levels, less water than in the 1960s or ’70s or ’80s or ’90s.”

CVWD water comes from two sources: local groundwater (the cheapest) and imported water purchased from the Foothill Municipal Water District (FMWD), which purchases its water from the Metropolitan Water District (MWD). That water is more expensive, coming either through the California Aqueduct from the Bay Delta or from the Colorado River.

Board President James Bodnar added that these conservation efforts are successful throughout the region.

“We’re using less water than 25 years ago. Southern California is leading the state. Northern California could learn a lot from us,” he commented before introducing Nem Ochoa, the District’s new general manager.

“I may be new here,” Ochoa introduced himself to the members of the community attending the meeting, “but I come with 25 years in the water industry.”

He summarized the budget charts and proposed water rate increase of 6.9%.

“The cost for us to deliver quality, reliable water has increased as we’ve faced a decade of drought. We have to make at least a minimal investment in the maintenance of a system that is 50 years old. Because we’re not proposing an increase to the sewer rate, the combined increase would be effectively 4.5%.”

Bodnar added, “You get what you pay for. Ours is a cost-of-service district. What it costs is what our customers pay. There’s no fund for anything else, no money that goes for anything other than water and staff and maintenance and all that it costs to deliver quality and reliable water.”

Opening up the discussion to comments from the audience, Bodnar sought to first recognize voices that had not spoken at the previous meeting. Among these was 35-year CVWD customer Frank Colcord, who said he supported the proposed budget, including the rate hike, to pay for the increased cost of imported water and to ensure that infrastructure maintenance and replacement is done.

“I also want to say that I oppose any future use of MTBE [Methyl tert-butyl ether] mitigation funds for short-term rate reductions,” Colcord said. “I believe these funds should be used for things that will result in long-term cost containment like improving our local ground water resource by investing in things like stormwater capture systems, reducing our reliance on expensive imported water, or by reducing energy-related costs and GHG emissions [greenhouse gases] by installing solar or other renewable energy systems.”

Michael Chonos followed, indicating that he objected to the effects of the tiered rate system on large lots such as his.

“Twenty years ago, there was no such thing as tiered rates, and no one bothered to figure out how this was going to affect larger lots,” he said. “I’m telling you, come see what I’ve done to conserve. Crunch my numbers. For 15 years, I’ve been coming here to urge this board to treat everyone fairly.”

“I water my lawn at 4 in the morning and at 10:30 at night and that’s the reason why it’s always green,” another customer shared. “Why do we need tiered rates?”

Ochoa replied that he and staff are available to review customer bills and irrigation practices to help identify unnecessary usage and costs.

“Name the restaurant,” he told Chonos, “and we’ll talk about it all.”

Richard Atwater responded as well. “I water once a week now, and I’ve got a large lot. In May when it drizzled a little I didn’t have to water at all. There are large lots that are in Tier 1. All of our utility bills are tiered – the gas bill and the Edison bill all have tiers to encourage conservation. Metro [MWD] has set aside $50 million to incentivize indoor and outdoor conservation, in fact.”

Another topic regarded homeowners who replaced their lawns with drought-tolerant plantings.

“During the drought a lot of folks dug up their lawns. Some of these houses look beautiful,” noted board director Ken Putman.

From the back row a young woman spoke up saying, “I’m going to keep bugging you to go to smart meters so we can see how we’re doing compared to last year and so we don’t have a heart attack every two months when we open the water bill.”

Director Mike Claessens then began the board deliberation by summarizing the costs paid by the water district: the cost of water, the cost of electricity to pump it from the Colorado River and the cost of the trucks and the staff and benefits and everything that it costs to deliver water. Finally, there are maintenance and repair costs, investments in the infrastructure.

“We scrutinize every expense. We’ve refinanced our debt, reduced some benefits, implemented a successful leak program,” Claessens said. “The only discretionary spending is capital improvement. We can choose not to upgrade, just like we can choose to not fix our cars, and take the chance that nothing will break down.”

He added that the water district is just as valuable as the school district.

“We have our own wells and our own reservoirs. In the event of an earthquake – when there’s an earthquake – we’ll be able to continue to pump water,” he said. “What I’m struggling with here is that we all want good quality water – water is more important than sewage or cable – but I’m hearing a lot of push-back from the community. I realize that no one wants to pay higher rates. What would you like us to do instead?”

Director Judy Tejeda, whose background is in accounting, shared that she would not be voting for the increase.

“Including the sewer rates dilutes how much the rates are going up,” she said. “I’ve spent 50 years in this district and I know first-hand that we can reduce expenses. Have we considered solar? We need to put the brakes on. The workers are wonderful, middle-income working people like you and me. But I always wonder, ‘Can we get another year out of that truck?’ We have reserves and I think we should use those MTBE funds.”

Bodnar reiterated that the District is committed to “great customer service” and dependable, safe water.

“We have great employees and I’m proud of the work we do. I do struggle with the comments from the public,” he said. “In my opinion, staff has cut the capital budget too much. It’s the community’s money ultimately, so perhaps we can be a little flexible and maybe use some MTBE funds to soften this increase, this year only.”

Ultimately the board adopted a final budget with a water rate increase of 5.5%. The board opted to invest an additional $200,000 towards worker pension and benefit liabilities “to demonstrate our commitment to our workers, as well as because we can realize as much as a 7% return versus the 1% we’ve been getting, saving approximately $14,000 a year, by paying down our obligation to CalPERS,” Bodnar explained.

Chonos remained dissatisfied that the District had still failed to address his large lot concerns.

“But if not for Tejeda and Bodnar, they wouldn’t have moved on the rate increase at all,” he said. “Those other guys wouldn’t reduce it even a tenth of a percent.”

  Julie BUTCHER