Selling water rights - What could go wrong?

Once in a while another city's council shenanigans merit mention here at the Voice.  This time it's Palo Alto giving us a head-scratcher moment.  Check this out from the Daily Post:

Palo Alto City Council is considering selling 1 million gallons of its daily water allocation, but environmental advocate Peter Drekmeier fears the water rights will be sold to Brisbane so a developer can build offices — worsening the region’s issues with too many jobs and not enough housing.  The idea of selling some of Palo Alto’s water rights to another city was presented in a memo by Councilwoman Alison Cormack and Mayor Pat Burt.  Council will discuss the idea, and whether to have a city planner spend three weeks exploring it, on Monday, Jan. 31.

Palo Alto has used between 8 and 10 million gallons per day for the past seven years, yet has the rights to up to 16 million gallons per day.  Selling 1 million gallons per day in water rights could bring in tens of millions of dollars for city projects, Burt and Cormack said.

Drekmeier — a former council member, mayor and now policy director for the Tuolumne River Trust — said Palo Alto shouldn’t sell water to a project that doesn’t help the Bay Area. He pointed to Brisbane, where developer Universal Paragon Corp. is looking for 2 million gallons per day to move forward with a massive project on the shore just south of San Francisco. 

That proposal drew an impassioned and informed letter to the editor from a Palo Alto resident that hit on a several points:

Did they (Burt and Comack) forget about the two new housing bills linking jobs to housing?  Did they forget the Bay Area already has to accommodate almost 1 million more people, all of whom use water?  Unbelievable at a time when Palo Alto residents are told to conserve water, are threatened with $500 fines if we use too much, have already been overcharged by the city utilities department every year to fund the General Fund and are now paying to appeal the judge's ruling in the case?

Remind me why we need another massive office complex.  Where's the fiscal responsibility and common sense?

Answer:  Missing and in short supply respectively.  Let's go a bit deeper into the shallow end of water politics and recall this.  A city's "water rights" are more of a suggestion than a contract these days.  And when the wells run dry you can bet the SFPUC, emphasis on the SF, and the new director, Dennis Herrera, will look out for their own as the SF Chronicle posited back in November:

Demanding better water conservation from neighbors while partnering on sustainable projects will be a tough needle to thread. Thankfully, Herrera has signaled that he’s up to the challenge. San Francisco residents need him to mean it.

Smart city councils would be looking to buy water rights, not to sell them!

Comments

[Joe]

Here's one historical snippet from the same Daily Post article that bears remembering:

"Water rights have been transferred only twice before. In 2017, Mountain View sold 1 million gallons per day for $5 million to East Palo Alto, which made sense for both cities. Mountain View was spending money on a fee whether it used the water or not, and East Palo Alto wasn’t allowing new development because of its low allocation.

In 2018, Palo Alto transferred 500,000 gallons for free to East Palo Alto, which had a low allocation because the city wasn’t established when the rights were divvied up."

[Joanne]

Geez isn't Palo Alto required by the RHNA numbers to build more housing like the rest of us or have they gotten a "free pass"??

Just don't get it!

[Joe]

Here is an example this week of neighborly water planning for the next Big One:

Millbrae will get its water from a Burlingame reservoir while Millbrae replaces its own aging tanks, an agreement that will allow for uninterrupted water service without cost increases.

The city is replacing two steel reservoirs designed to hold 1 million and 0.5 million gallons located just west of Interstate 280 with a single concrete tank with a 1.5-million-gallon capacity. The tanks were recommended for replacement in 2015 and the city broke ground on construction of the new tank early this year.

Burlingame will charge Millbrae standard wholesale SFPUC rates for the water. The tanks being replaced sit next to a concrete Burlingame-owned tank.

The new tank will be 105 feet in diameter and 38 feet tall. The city estimated the tank would cost $7.1 million to construct and take roughly two months to complete. The city in 2017 approved water rate increases to fund the project along with other upgrades and maintenance to the water system.

https://www.smdailyjournal.com/news/local/millbrae-set-to-use-burlingame-water-during-tank-replacement/article_fb5b1d00-80bd-11ec-9821-a77ce524c32f.html?utm_source=smdailyjournal.com&utm_campaign=%2Fnewsletters%2Fheadlines%2F%3F-dc%3D1643468405&utm_medium=email&utm_content=headline

[Joanne]

Today's Daily Journal states snowpack has been reduced. If we don't get enough rain in the next two months we're back where we started dealing with the drought.

[Cassandra]

Let’s build more stuff!

[Joe]

From the WSJ:

California’s snowpack has shrunk to about two-thirds of normal, as the state’s relentless drought produced the driest January and February on record and raised the likelihood of more wildfires and deeper water cuts to cities and farms.

A manual survey conducted Tuesday by the state Department of Water Resources showed a snowfield near Lake Tahoe was at 68% of normal. Electronic readings of snow across the Sierra Nevada range, which supplies much of California’s water when it melts, stood at 63% of normal for March 1. With forecasts showing no major storms on the horizon, state officials expressed little hope that March would make up for the deficit by the time the California wet season ends in April.

“It’s safe to say we will end this [water] year dry,” Sean de Guzman, manager of the agency’s snow surveys, said at a briefing after taking the manual measurement Tuesday.

With major reservoirs such as Shasta Lake at 37% of capacity and Lake Oroville at 47%, state and federal officials have instituted cutbacks to users.