HomeMy WebLinkAbout9 Workshop on Water Utilityenda Item 9
To: Board of Directors
From: Steven Poncelet
Date. September 06, 2017
Subject: The Best Water Right From Your Tap
1. WHY THIS MATTER IS BEFORE THE BOARD
This Board item, The Best Water Right From Your Tap, if the first in a new series of
board workshops concerning how we communicate with and serve our customers and
community.
2. HISTORY
The Mission of Truckee Donner Public Utility District is to provide reliable, high quality
water and electrical power services while meeting customer demand, and to manage
District resources in a safe, open, responsible, environmentally sound manner at the
lowest practical cost. To achieve this mission, the District operates an electric and
water utility along with the necessary supporting departments and programs. It is
imperative, given the complexity of the energy and water sectors, that the District
communicate effectively with our customers and community to educate them on the
value of public power and water and to engage customers to participate in the many
programs and services that we offer.
These communication and outreach efforts, along with the associated programs and
services, fall into well known themes that communicate the essence of how the
District's efforts serve our customers. Today's key themes include:
• The Best Water Right From Your Tap;
• Save Energy, Water, Money and Live More Comfortably;
• The Facts of Mountain Living;
• Your Public -Owned Local Electric and Water Utility;
• Your On -Line Account Anywhere;
• Truckee is EV Friendly;
• Clean, Reliable, and Affordable Electric Services; and
• Your Local Community Partner.
This Board item covers "The Best Water Right From Your Tap"
3. NEW INFORMATION
The Best Water Right From Your Tap:
This theme has existed in the District for over a decade and encompasses the
following key activities of the water utility and associated programs and services:
• The District's role as steward of the our water resources including the Martis
Valley Groundwater Basin (MVGB);
• The District's goal to provide clean, reliable, and affordable water services; and
• The District's efforts to help our customers save water before, during, and after
droughts.
The District, as the largest water supplier in greater Truckee area, has a key
responsibility for stewardship of the regions water resources. This includes both
ground and surface water resources but, today, the vast majority of the District's water
comes from groundwater from the MVGB. The MVGB is an incredible natural
resource that not only provides water for our local region but is also part of the
Truckee River Basin water system which is the main water supply for Reno and
portions of Northern Nevada. The Truckee River Basin is one of the most litigated
and regulated basins in the United States starting with the Federal Truckee River
Operating Agreement (TROA) and mostly recently California's Sustainable
Groundwater Management Act (SGMA). The Districts water rates are set by the
Board but subject to California Proposition 218 which, amongst other things, requires
that water rates for different customer classes be based on actual costs of service.
TROA, which is a bi-state settlement agreement requiring an act of the U.S. Congress,
essentially allocates water rights between entities in California and Nevada along with
restrictions on use and impacts to the environment. TROA finally took effect in
December, 2015 and is being administered in California by the Department of Water
Resources (DWR). SGMA, which was past by the California legislature in 2014,
regulates groundwater only and is designed to ensure that groundwater pumping does
not create significant and unreasonable undesirable results which are: Chronic
lowering of groundwater levels; reduction of groundwater storage; seawater intrusion;
degraded water quality; land subsidence; and depletions of interconnected surface
water. To comply with SGMA, the District has taken the lead - working with Northstar
Community Services District, Placer County Water Agency, Town of Truckee, Placer
County, and Nevada County - to propose an Alternative Submittal to DWR based on
documenting at least 10-years of sustainable operations of the MVGB as defined by
SGMA. Collaboration, locally and at the State level, has served the District and our
customers very well.
One central tenant of all of the District's efforts on stewardship of our water resources
is to use the best available science to inform the decision making process. The
District, over the decades, has participated in numerous scientific studies on the
MVGB and the regions watershed. This includes financial support and direct
participation in the U.S. Bureau of Reclamations Truckee River Basin Study which
included a state-of-the-art groundwater model for the MVGB along with water aging
studies and the projected impacts of climate change. This large body of scientific
work indicates that the MVGB is a healthy, sustainable, and well managed basin.
The District works diligently and has a solid track -record in providing providing clean,
reliable, and affordable water services. This achievement is the result of many factors
including:
• Hiring and retaining a specialized and well trained work force who are amongst
the best in the water industry;
• Operating and maintaining the District's water infrastructure to ensure that the
water our customers receive is clean and healthy as verified by rigorous water
quality testing and controls. In fact, the water the District serves meets all water
quality standards at both the State and Federal level. And while the District
takes water quality very seriously, we are fortunate to have very pure and clean
water which requires only minimal treatment and, in some cases, has been
purified in the aquifer for over 1,000 years;
• Investing in the water distribution system and new technologies to deliver our
water and associated programs at the lowest practical cost. This includes
plugging leaks in the water distribution system and replacing almost 15-miles of
piping in the last decade. The District is also dramatically improving our
Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system, modernizing our
fleet, and rebuilding water facilities; and
• Improving the efficiency of our water pumps to minimize the energy required to
deliver water to our customers. It should be noted that the District's water utility
does benefit from the District's electric utility's ability to provide clean and
affordable electricity (which will be covered in a future workshop).
The District understands that water is a precious natural resource and we strive to
help our customers save water before, during, and after droughts. In fact, the
District's water production is down over 40% since 2006. The District has achieved
this impressive result by plugging leaks in the distribution system, by installing water
meters well before the State mandate of 2025, and promoting water conservation.
Critical to these efforts is educating people on the value of our water resources along
with providing the opportunity to save water and money. The District supplies almost
three -times more water in the summer than in the winter. To help our customers
reduce their outdoor water use, the District has developed the Patricia S. Sutton
Conservation garden to promote native and drought -tolerant landscaping along with
efficient irrigation and other water -saving techniques. For indoor water use, the
District's Customer Leak Repair Program and free water -efficient toilets are key
programs. These water conservation programs will be covered in greater detail in a
future Board workshop.
The District truly does serve The Best Water Right From Your Tap when considering
the importance of our natural resources, the quality of our water, and our commitment
to help our customers only use that water that they need.
4. FISCAL IMPACT
There is no fiscal impact associate with this workshop item.
5. RECOMMENDATION
Receive this report and provide comments.
/V fe At/� I -
Steven Poncelet
Public Information & Strategic Affairs Manag(
Michael D. Holley
General Manager