The city council is effectively the board of directors for the water and wastewater enterprise. In that role each council member should be well versed in the details of our water supply, water quality, systems and contingency plans in the event of failure or emergencies.
The council is also responsible for ensuring the finances of the enterprises are understood and reserves meet policy requirements at all times.
Council members should understand the system and be able to answer questions such as those below:
1. What is the status of our aquifers as described in studies done in the past and the history of well water levels compared to demand and rainfall over the last 10 years? What is the maximum sustainable demand that can be pulled from the aquifer?
2. This status report states that our wells are drawing from the Wilson Grove but the Santa Rosa Plain Groundwater Sustainability Agency seems to include us in the Santa Rosa Plain Groundwater management program. There does not appear to be any management of the Wilson Grove? Should West County be in its own Ground water management group?
3. According to data from the Santa Rosa Plain Groundwater Sustainability Agency dashboard the Sebastopol’s well - off Petaluma Ave saw a rise of almost 20 ft in ground water level during the winter of 2020 and 2021.
These levels were sustained during the last drought. What caused the increase in ground water levels? These levels are 30 feet above the minimum threshold, and we have never seen more than about 5 feet of seasonal variation from sea level, even during droughts.
4. The levels on the Santa Rosa Groundwater dashboard do not really match the 4 hygrographs on the city website. These hydrographs measure water level from the collar rather over sea level but there is much more variation in this measure. Why?
5. What is the maximum effective pumping volume compared to demand volume. Is it different between zones? Can water supply be transferred between zones to meet demand changes?
6. Does the water supply from the four wells get mixed before entering the pipeline or is it mixed in the pipeline network as it moves around the city? Do households that live near a well get more of the contaminants from that well than those who live farther away?
7. Does GMP mean gallons per minute? Are GMP and GPM used in the same context? Is MG millions of gallons?
8. What is the estimated new water demand from the Canopy project.
How will that new demand be provided? What level of increased pumping will be required from which pumps. What is future estimated demand from all new developments currently in the books?
9. The status report states that there is 7 days of reserve in the “reservoirs”.
What is the probability that any potential problem can be resolved in 7 days or less?
10. How much is the 7-day supply decreased by planned new development in the next 2 years? Nearly all of that development is in zone 2. How does that impact supply? At what level of development do we need new storage reservoirs?
11. 85% of our water production is contaminated with chemicals or arsenic.
Is this unusual?
12. How safe is our water? Arsenic and “dry cleaning fluid” don’t make the water seem safe.
13. Well 4 currently is the highest volume well supplying ¾ of the water in zone 1. When well 4 comes offline how will the volume be made up? How much volume will need to be replaced from which wells and how does that new demand compare to the theoretical maximum volume that can be pumped. Without well 4 water which does not have arsenic what will happen to the arsenic levels in our drinking water?
14. It looks like Well 8 is the cleanest well in terms of contaminants. Is it’s volume being used to dilute the contaminants in the other wells? If well 8 were to fail would our water quality meet standards for arsenic?
15. What are the options for cleaning up the arsenic. CEQA directed the city to develop a treatment plan in 2013. What happened to that plan? Can we have water without arsenic?
16. What is the disaster plan? How many pumps can we lose to mechanical issues or contaminations and still provide realistic water supply that is uncontaminated?
17. Describe the energy management or the water system. Do we have solarpanels? Do we have battery backup? Water rate payers have paid for solar panels at least once in the last few years yet the PGE charges for energy are increasing consistently at double digit rates. How much of the energy to pump water is from solar and what is supplied by PG&E? Have we maximized the efficiency of the system? Wasn’t there a solar project for one of the wells included in the Syserco project?
18. What are the backup systems in place to address prolonged power outages
19. What materials are our water mains constructed from. Do we have lead pipes in the system? Where? Is there any testing plan for lead in the water at the faucets? What are the results over time?
20. I saw that PW is inspecting water meter connections for lead pipes.
What is the result?
21. Arsenic contamination made at least one of our wells unusable in the past. Well 6 and Well 7 currently contaminated with arsenic. Future system upgrades include a design for an arsenic treatment facility. What is the cost of building it. What is the timeline to complete the facility and put it into service? Do we have the money in reserve? If not, are we putting money into reserve? I don’t remember this coming up in the water rate study.
22. The presentation supporting the rationale for rate increases made the argument that “Much of our systems are at or beyond their useful life”.
What are the useful lives of the various system components, (pumps and pipes). Please describe the systems described in this presentation that are beyond their useful life.
23. Based on water use in this report our three water “reservoirs” would provide about 7 days of water in the event of a catastrophic failure of our wells. Are the tanks always kept full or is it just by chance when water use is lower?
24. What is the plan to restore a catastrophic failure within 7 days? Has the city identified the possibilities, the cost and timeline for emergency repairs? Does the city have to wait for the next budget committee and then city council meeting to get authorization to act? Is there money in reserve for these unbudgeted emergency expenses? Is there an plan with required approvals?
25. It has been one full quarter. I believe 2 billing cycles. What is the current financial status of water and wastewater operations. Are revenues increasing at the expected rates? Is water use at expected levels? Is the wastewater billing problem fixed?
26. There seems to be a problem with the water billing that is being handled by manual calculations. What is the cause of the problem and how is it being resolved.
27. Admin/Finance has had the highest increase in department costs in recent years. We see problems across the board with proper billing for water and sewer, very manual processes, security breaches. Is there a plan to examine the work that is being done and the systems that are being used to find process efficiencies and cost reductions? How are you progressing on managing costs for water and wastewater?
28. Many cities have provisions in their rate policy to add a surcharge in the event water use declines due to drought restrictions. Sebastopol chose to ignore this reality. Will we be able to avoid drought restrictions due to our unique aquifer situation or does our membership in the Santa Rosa Groundwater Sustainability Group obligate us to follow their policies? If not who is working on the contingency and its impact on our water reserves which will remain depleted for at least one full year.
29. It is reassuring to know we have qualified PW individuals to work on the system. It would be meaningful as well to see a list of the issues that have been addressed in our outdated water system and the costs to resolve those issues in the last five years.
30. In the event of wildfire and power outages, how long will water at the fire hydrants last until they are exhausted?
31. The city’s General Plan has a number of objectives for water management:
• Operate the City’s well system in such a manner as to not exceed the sustainable yield of the local groundwater aquifer. [What is the sustainable yield of our aquifer, what % of that yield are we currently using and what are our limits?] • Encourage new groundwater recharge opportunities and protect existing groundwater recharge areas throughout the Sebastopol Planning Area.
What are we doing to preserve and enhance groundwater
recharge? I have not seen any discussion of this in three years.
• Promote the use of permeable surface materials and provide for ample areas of open space and naturalized land in order to decrease surface runoff and promote groundwater recharge. • Seek opportunities to expand the groundwater recharge capacity of City-owned parcels throughout Sebastopol.