February 6, 2008

"Blowing it all off"

By Danielle Seckler

   After watching the big summit between the City Council and Department of Water and Power (DWP) last Monday, I had to laugh my “you know what” off. My first question from all of the City Council is, if water was so important to you, why don’t you attend the DWP meetings when the explained their Master Plan? Mayor Rick Herrick was on the DWP as their president in 2005 through the end of 2006, when the components were being explained after each draft became more complete. It was only after last year’s debacle when the DWP increased the commercial rates, that they became involved. First they threw barbs at the DWP general manager and their board for stating the obvious, the system is about to collapse and it is going to take a lot of money to fix it. The City Council caved to pressure from the businesses, ignoring the many residents who supported the increase, even though in the resident’s heart, they know their turn is next. Michael Karp did his usual therapist thing, stating that with so many people (about 40) to voice their opposition against an increase to their rates, that the DWP didn’t do their job correctly. My next question is how do you deliver bad news to people who just don’t want to hear it?

   So last Monday, both boards sat around, with four of the five planning commissioners in the audience, making nice to each other. The City Council asked their questions and more meetings will be held to educate the City Council on what the Master Plan says. I sat through 5 years of meetings and workshops and here it is in a nut shell. The system is crap and even though the DWP has done a lot to bring it up to par, it just isn’t enough and it will cost millions upon millions to fix. How does the DWP get the money? There are only three pocketbooks they can go to; the customers, the Federal government and maybe the State. The later two, will be a long time in coming, though with bridges falling down last year infrastructure has become more of a priority, until the next big event hits the US.

   At this time, we don’t know how much water we have available from either the east or west end of the valley. Most likely, we will draw on any water that is currently in the valley, first from the CSD and building more storage; then we will have to pipe water up the hill and still have to do a recharge project. We may find someday that droplets are coming out of our taps, while we stare at the lake and when we get thirsty, we will start taking water from the lake. Personally, I would rather drink recharge water than the lake’s polluted water. Hopefully, someone will figure out how to make the recharge healthy enough and our males don’t start becoming ‘feminized’, like those poor male fish somewhere.

   During the Super Tuesday elections someone said that 1 in 8 Americans live in California and it is expected that another 30,000 or so will move to the mountaintop within my future. Growth will be a component of the future, whether part-timers become full-timers or more homes are built. Karp and many others think ‘no-growth’ or the dreaded word ‘moratorium’ is the answer, though they will accept ‘slow growth’; whatever slow growth means. Karp is really proud of himself that he could delay the Unique Mountain Development project for another 4 or 5 months, which I have stated before was a dirty trick to do this far into the process and there is no talking to him about it.

   Yes we need to seriously consider that the challenges faced by the drought and fire, plus growth, while the water seems to be limited and decrepit water delivery systems. Nothing goes on forever and all natural resources are not unlimited. However, I don’t think the sky is falling. Do we need to get rid of lawns and Xeriscape instead; yes we do. Should we conserve on our water use; yes we do. These are the simplest things to do and the DWP has done a great job in educating the public about conservation.

   The water delivery system will be replaced, but as the money comes in, the money will go out to fix it. The DWP’s Master Plan gave a couple of choices on how to get the money to fix the system and the boards will do what they can. Money, like natural resources, is not unlimited. The commercial businesses got a compromise to their water increases with the tiered implementation, which reduced what could be replaced this year. Resident users will be next. The Federal government looks like it will give us some money, about $1 million, though the DWP will have to do matching funds and that will jump start the replacement process. The minority of the valley who wants a moratorium will not get what they want, since the majority of the residents don’t want that and it very unlikely that it will change within the near future. They will continue with the delay tactics and lawsuits. No community gets to go backwards and history has shown us that. The California political environment doesn’t support it, nor does the Valley’s political will.

   So, I’m blowing it all off as lots of hot air. Water summits, like HUFI did, will just be a whole lot of talk. It’s an election year; with Liz Harris and Bill Jahn positions on the City Council on the ballot in November. Until I can see my government, actually do something for the majority of the community and the special interests are delegated to the minority, I have little interest to waste my time going to meetings. Call me when a plan of action for the entire valley’s needs is ready.

Would you like to comment on this article? Just send us an email to PR@bearvalleynews.com. Let us know if you would like us to put it in a letter to the editor and if you want your name printed.

Back to Front Page