SCVWD will increase residential, ag water rates

Municipal and agricultural rates in the Santa Clara Valley Water District will increase soon due to a large, statewide project aimed at conserving species in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and increasing the state’s ability to pump water from the delta.
Locals in Gilroy, San Martin and Morgan Hill will notice a $5 rate hike per household, per month to their annual rate, which currently rests at $305 per year. Executive Director Jennifer Scheer with the Santa Clara Farm Bureau said in order to fund the proposed water conveyance projects, the rate hikes will most likely precede any construction efforts, which have yet to be granted permits or start dates.
While the Bay Delta Conservation Plan is still in its infancy and has not been solidified into a final draft, SCVWD farmers and agricultural ratepayers are also expected to see an increase, although it has not been determined how much according to SCVWD Public Information Officer Marty Grimes. Individual districts will decide on rate increases, Grimes said. The current SCVWD agriculture rate is $18.30 per acre-foot.
Some districts that are very reliant on delta waters expect to see agricultural acre-foot prices rise as high as $150 for delta waters, according Deputy Secretary Jerry Meral of the California Department of Natural Resources. Grimes does not expect the rate increase to be that high for SCVWD agricultural users.
“Most urban areas, including those in the Bay Area and Central Valley are somewhat reliant on the delta,” said Meral. “Northern Contra Costa County gets 100 percent of its water from the delta, Southern Alameda County near Livermore gets 80 percent of its water from the delta, the Silicon Valley gets 40 percent of its water or more from the delta and West San Joaquin gets upwards of 80 percent of its water from the delta.”
SCVWD representatives and members of the California Department of Natural Resources met with agricultural ratepayers to discuss the Bay Delta Conservation Plan Tuesday in Morgan Hill.
Meral said the 50-year-long plan to restore habitats in the delta and enable more pumping of delta waters will be a long-term, multi-faceted effort by state.
While the plan has many endeavors and is mainly focused on conserving wildlife, Meral said one of the plan’s more debated proposals is to build a tunnel connecting pumps upstream of the delta on the Sacramento River to the state and federal pumps south of the delta near Tracy, which pump water throughout the state.
According to Meral, the tunnel’s path under the delta would protect California against sudden levee collapses and disastrously low delta water levels, therefore inhibiting the pumping of water to municipal and agricultural land in the Silicon Valley, San Joaquin Valley, East Bay and Southern California.
Meral said without the tunnel, a levee collapse scenario could inhibit the delivery of water via the Tracy pumps for weeks, months or even years, depending on the severity of the levee breaches, and could devastate the state’s agriculture industry. Moreover, he said this scenario is not unlikely. It is a severe threat to farmers and landowners and also the state’s economy, he confirmed.
Randy Costa, vice president of Headstart Nursery in Gilroy, raised concerns about the potential spike in agricultural water rates.
“We use less water than other operations because we growing tiny seedlings, not produce and trees,” Costa said. “The increase in agricultural rates would affect prices and could cause customers to seek business elsewhere.”
Costa said that unlike some districts that almost exclusively require delta waters, South County’s relatively low reliance on delta waters would cause an undesirable but tolerable price hike.
However, the Bay Delta Conservation Plan will not be implemented for several years. The final draft is still being formulated and the department still has to pass through a gamut of agencies to get the required permits, said Meral, adding that it will be several years before bonds are sold to fund construction and even longer before actual construction will begin.
“This plan will stabilize the water supply and make the (delta) a better place for the environment,” Meral said. “But it will take years and is a massive undertaking.”