McGourty said he could “eventually envision one water supplier for most of the Ukiah Valley. Not everybody wants that. Some people like the independence;” but he predicts that smaller water companies, especially those with fewer than 300 customers, will have a harder and harder time keeping up with state regulations. “It’s hard to pay for everything we need to do,” he said, from filing paperwork, engineering the systems, reading the meters, and ensuring compliance. “The state keeps heaping on more and more regulations, supposedly in the name of the public good, to make sure that no one suddenly gets sick from drinking their tap water,” he concluded.
Sean White, the director of water resources for the City of Ukiah, hopes the new authority could qualify for grant funding from the state’s Safe and Affordable Funding for Equity and Resilience, or SAFER program. He says if larger water districts don’t step up to help out smaller neighbors voluntarily, the state could make them do it without the generous grants.
“Predicting what's going to happen with the state budget right now is not a good bet,” he conceded. “But I think if anyone's going to help us, it's going to be the SAFER program. And to be honest, if we don't do it through this voluntary incentive-based program, it's very likely that the state will do it to us in a mandatory way, through SB 88 at some point in the future, which comes with no money.”
White thinks it’s a real possibility that the state could eventually make the city of Ukiah take on Redwood Valley’s water difficulties. The community faces regular water rations of 55 gallons per person per day in the summertime, and there’s a moratorium on new hookups. McGourty thinks that the new infrastructure could eventually lead to lifting the moratorium and alleviating some of the housing shortage.
White says he expects the new authority with undertake supplying “a reasonable amount of water to Redwood Valley,” which is currently served by a very small intertie. “It’s just not enough to provide even basic quality of life…And then I think all of the districts could benefit from more tank storage in the hills, (which are) really key for firefighting.”
On a larger scale, White says the water district consolidation has been a community-wide goal for decades. He thinks that having more than half a dozen small water districts in the Ukiah Valley has led to fractured water policy. For the consequences of fractured water policy, “I don’t think you have to look any further than Lake Mendocino,” he advised, citing the lack of cohesion between the inland and coastal regions of the county prior to the construction of Coyote Valley Dam. Sonoma County owns the lion’s share of water from the lake, while Mendocino County has access to about 14%
Jared Walker is the manager of Willow and Calpella water districts, which chose not to join the water authority at this time. In a brief email, he noted that the authority is structured so that other districts can join later, and added that, “There isn’t any one specific reason the Calpella and Willow (districts) have not joined at this time;” but that both have some concerns about “unknown cost increases and the probability of having to increase water rates more than the Boards would like to. ”
Meanwhile, McGourty expects more water consolidations in the county’s future. “I could really see a coastal water system that would go from Fort Bragg to Little River, that would share water resources and treatment and expertise and staff,” he mused. “I doubt we’ll see it in my lifetime. But it’s something that could happen.” He added that this week, the Board of Supervisors signed a contract with Larry Walker and Associates, “to actually study the hydrology of the coast again and try to come up with an updated, good scientific source of information that could help guide development.”
White says the connections will not be “instantaneous,” but he’s confident the newly formed water authority is the first step on the path toward connecting outlying communities to the groundwater underneath the Ukiah valley.
The first public meeting of the new authority will be Tuesday, April second in the Ukiah Valley Conference Center at 6pm.
