American Canyon pushes water conservation

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Monday, June 02, 2008

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By KERANA TODOROV
Register Staff Writer

Conserve water!

That’s the message that American Canyon residents will receive this summer as city officials get ready to spend about $500,000 to buy water from Vallejo. The city expects to receive only a fraction of allocated water from the Delta — its primary source of supply.

Mayor Leon Garcia said the city will ask residents to conserve water voluntarily, including repairing leaky faucets and installing low-flow toilets.

“We should all be conscious of our stewardship of that resource,” Garcia said Sunday.

The city of 17,000 people, which also supplies the airport area, needs about 4,000 acre-feet of water annually. This year it expects to receive only 35 percent of its Delta water allocation.

To make up the shortfall, American Canyon officials last week said the city will buy up to 300 acre-feet of treated water from Vallejo — more than twice as much as in 2007.

Vallejo water is considered an emergency supply because it is more expensive than Delta water. It costs about $1,500 per acre-foot, according to the city. By comparison, the city estimated the cost of treating Delta raw water at between $80 and $90 an acre-foot. An average household of four use one acre-foot of water a year.

Unlike Napa and the other Napa County cities, American Canyon does not have a reservoir of potable water to tap. Its water is transported from the Central Valley via the North Bay Aqueduct and treated at the city’s treatment plant off of Jamieson Canyon Road.

The state’s Department of Water Resources, the agency that administers the State Water Project, announced it will release only 35 percent of the city’s full allocation after a dry spring, low snowpack and a series of court decisions restricting the shipment of water from the Delta.

A state meteorologist estimated in early May that the state’s reservoirs will be 65 percent full this summer. The city also expects to buy water from other sources, including about 500 acre-feet from rural districts, to meet its demand for potable water.

However, City Attorney Bill Ross last week told the city’s Blue Ribbon Committee on Water Resources that a court case filed in Butte County could jeopardize the city’s ability to purchase water from rural irrigation districts in the Central Valley.

The lawsuit “couldn’t have happened at a worse time,” City Manager Rich Ramirez told the committee on May 27.

4 comment(s)

musikluvr wrote on Jun 3, 2008 12:52 PM:

" How can a town quadruple in size in 8 years and not have a water source? they have to buy water from one hundred miles away? Who is responsible for this situation? How could so many houses be built without a source of domestic water? "

LateNightLarry wrote on Jun 3, 2008 10:36 PM:

" Muskiluvr... Get a couple of facts straight first... American Canyon population has slightly more than doubled in 15 years.

American Canyon DOES have a water source, the State Water Project. Unfortunately, AC has only been in the water business since about 1965, when the AC Water District bought the water service from California Pacific Utilities, a private for-profit company that supplied the water prior to that and bought its water from the City of Napa. ACWD did that for perhaps 15 years before signing a long term contract with the State Water Project building its own treatment facility. The problem is that the SWP contract gives the state the absolute right to cut the city's water allocation in drought years. ANY entity getting water from the SWP has the same contract. In 1991, the SWP cut AC's allocation to 10% of the contracted amount, but ACWD (before incorporation) was able to buy enough water to get through the year.

The former American Canyon Water District Board and now the City of American Canyon have been trying to find a permanent source that can't be cut for at least 30 years... there is literally no surface water available to buy, and building a reservoir, such as Napa's Conn Dam, is extremely expensive and probably couldn't pass environmental hurdles. Effectively, there is no water anywhere to buy. Conn Dam doesn't provide all the water the City of Napa needs either and Napa gets water from the SWP.

Drilling wells is not feasible in American Canyon because of salt water intrusion in the underground aquifer... the water is undrinkable.

If you have a source, why not tell the City Council? "

musikluvr wrote on Jun 5, 2008 11:44 AM:

" Today June 5th there is a big front page article about the state's reservoirs going dry and the governor has called it a drought. Just exactly where is American Canyon going to get water since it has no dedicated water source? Is this one of those successful planning programs run by Matt Pope? "

musikluvr wrote on Jun 5, 2008 2:21 PM:

" To Larry: Sure, here you go asking for Napans to solve your planning and infrastructure problems. We had to buy a high school for you, isn't that enough? You say there is "no water anywhere to buy". What an incredibly ignominious situation. So, I ask my original question and I want an answer! "How coud so many houses be build without a source of domestic water"? "

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