The current five members of the Montecito Water Board ran as slate candidates in 2016 and 2018, and they won election largely on the promise of recycling treated wastewater for irrigation. A group of wealthy donors poured $200,000 into their campaigns.
Yet the new board seems in no hurry to
get the job done.
Boardmembers have signaled their “intent to pursue” a $16 million project, one that would provide non-potable recycled wastewater for irrigation at the Birnam Wood and Valley Club golf courses, Santa Barbara Cemetery, Music Academy of the West, and Biltmore and Miramar hotels, some of the biggest water customers in Montecito.
But the Water Board won’t likely vote
on the project until October, at the earliest. Environmentalists are upset, but
the board has called for more studies of Montecito’s groundwater basins to find
out whether treated wastewater could be injected into them and used as a future
drinking supply. Because advanced treatment would be required, a groundwater
injection project is estimated cost as much as $31 million.
“I’m not sure what the studies may
show,” said Director Ken Coates, who was elected to the water board in
November. “We are a long way from having hard answers to a lot of questions. I
think it’s premature to know when we might be ready for a hard vote.”
According to the board’s timeline,
Montecito’s recycled water project, whatever it is, will not be completed until
mid-2022.
Since the November election, the Water Board
and Montecito Sanitary District board have struggled to understand each other.
Two slate candidates won election to the Sanitary District board, but they do
not form the majority there.
Sanitary District board President Tom
Bollay, who was not a slate candidate, says Montecito San could have a
recycling plant up and operating on its property at 1042 Monte Cristo Lane by
the summer of 2020, with a price tag of well under $5 million.
It could be the “first phase” of a
larger recycled water project, Bollay said, and it would serve non-potable
irrigation water through “purple pipes” to the sanitary district’s immediate
neighbors — the Santa Barbara Cemetery, the Music Academy of the West, and,
possibly, the Biltmore.
“There’s no need to go to the higher
expense of extra purification if ultimately we’re going to use the water for
irrigation anyway,” Bollay said.
Heal the Ocean, a Santa Barbara–based nonprofit group, supports the sanitary district’s approach. The Water District, said Hillary Hauser, the group’s executive director, is just “fooling around.”
“Why do they want to spend ratepayer
money to treat wastewater to Sparkletts quality when it’s not necessary?” she
asked. “Heal the Ocean wants to see recycled water as soon as possible in
Montecito. No more studies. Build this thing, exclamation point!”
In addition to studying the groundwater basins, water boardmembers say they will look into whether a recycling plant could be designed, financed, and operated by a private company more cheaply than by the Sanitary District.
Meanwhile, the Sanitary District is
planning to move ahead this summer with a pilot wastewater recycling project on
a small scale. It will produce non-potable water to irrigate the landscaping on
Sanitary District property and flush the sewer pipelines.
At an April 2 meeting with water board
members, Sanitary District officials floated the idea of testing the pilot
project across the street at the cemetery, to determine what blend of
non-potable water would work best on grass.
“We may be able to actually start doing
something,” Bollay said.
But Floyd Wicks, the water board
president, said, “We’ve got bigger fish to fry.”
'Where’s the Plan?'
Goleta and Santa Barbara have been
recycling wastewater for irrigation for more than 25 years, but the Montecito
Water board never embraced the idea. Only 15 percent of the water supply in the
community of one-acre lots, large estates, and luxury resorts is used indoors
and can be recovered through the sewer system.
A recycled water supply for Montecito
“shouldn’t be considered a significant drought relief measure,” a report for
the water board stated in 2015.
But residents were rattled by mandatory
rationing during the recent seven-year drought. About 10 percent of Water District
customers incurred penalties for overwatering, and the penalties were high. At
the Birnam Wood Golf Club on East Valley Road, two Water District irrigation
wells failed. The recent campaigns for slate candidates garnered large
donations from Birnam Wood and Valley Club members.
At an April 10 meeting of the Sanitary District
board, with water board members in the audience, Bob Hazard, a Birnam Wood
resident, associate editor of the Montecito
Journal and major donor to the 2016 and 2018 slate campaigns, expressed
frustration with the slow pace of progress. He urged both boards to act soon on
recycled water, whether the project cost $20 million, $30 million, or $40
million, he said.
“Where’s the plan?” Hazard asked.
The 2015 report concluded that
Montecito’s shallow groundwater basins, dense with private wells, had “limited
recharge potential” even after long droughts. But Wicks, the water board
president, said the latest drought has drawn down the underground water to
historical lows, potentially providing more space for injecting wastewater that
has undergone advanced treatment.
“We’re at the stage where all these ideas are swirling around,” Wicks said. “We’re trying to do what’s best for the community, and speed is not something that is going to give you the best answer all the time.”
The more wastewater that can be treated
and recycled, the less that has to be discharged into the ocean, he said,
adding, “That’s an intrinsic benefit you can’t put a price on.”
But Bollay is not so sure.
“Just because it’s the right thing to do doesn’t mean it’s affordable to the community,” he said.
The Cost of New Water
Even as it postpones a decision on
recycled water, the Montecito Water District is actively pursuing an agreement
with the City of Santa Barbara for a share of the city’s water supply. To sell
surplus water to Montecito, the city would expand its desalination plant; the
resulting cost to Montecito and Summerland ratepayers would be up to $5 million
per year for the next 50 years, rain or no rain.
The board is expected to vote on the
deal this summer, following a rate study and public hearings.
In recent letters to the Montecito Journal, Bob Roebuck, a former
general manager of the Montecito Water District (MWD), warned customers to be
prepared for “a serious increase in their monthly bills.” His own bill would
increase by 80 percent, he said, from $150 to more than $270, to pay for
desalinated and recycled water — projects he said Montecito doesn’t need.
Roebuck called the proposed deal with
Santa Barbara “a terrible waste of MWD customer funds.” Montecito has recently
shown that it can import enough water through the state aqueduct to weather a
long drought, he said. “Even in the worst conceivable water shortage,” Roebuck
said, the district’s groundwater supply can easily meet customers’ indoor water
demand.
In an interview this month, Roebuck
said that if the two golf courses want recycled water, maybe they should pay
for it.
“Why does a Montecito Water District
customer have to pay?” he asked.
About 43 percent of the non-potable
recycled water produced in Goleta and more than half in Santa Barbara goes to
public properties such as parks and schools. In Montecito, close to 100 percent
of any non-potable supply would likely go to private commercial properties.
Birnam Wood already enjoys the lowest
water rates in Montecito — $1.40 per hundred cubic feet of irrigation water
from five non-potable district wells serving the golf course. By contrast, the
lowest rates for agricultural operations and single-family homes in Montecito
are $3 and $5.40 per hundred cubic feet of drinking water, respectively.
At the April 2 meeting, Sanitary District
officials asked their water board colleagues if they had considered the Pebble
Beach model in Carmel, California, where the $67 million cost of a recycled
water plant — built in 1994 and later expanded and updated — is paid for by
golfers and residents of the world-famous resort.
Brian Goebel, one of the new water
board directors, said a non-potable supply in Montecito would free up drinking
water for all residents.
“The community benefits; the community pays,” he said. Goebel said the water and sanitary districts should jointly develop “talking points” to convey that message.
“I would like to get us singing from
the same songbook on this,” he said.
'The Election Is Over'
In a recent memo to the Sanitary District,
Hauser alleged that former slate candidates now on the board were trying to
further the agenda of their donors — namely, she said, possible consolidation
of the water and sanitary districts; using the Sanitary District property for a
future desalination plant and “not needing” the sanitary district general
manager.
But speaking from the audience at the
April 10 meeting of the Sanitary District board, Ken Coates, a water board
member, said, “I’m sorry, Hillary, you’re wrong.
“The election is over,” he said. “The
campaigning has ended. We all need to move on. It sounds like we are all on the
same page and we have a common goal. We should not be complaining about
elephants that are not in the room.”
Woody Barrett, one of two former slate
candidates on the Sanitary District board, asked Hauser, “Have you ever run for
public office? When you run as a slate, you become friends with these guys.
We’ve all been throwing ideas back and forth.”
And Goebel, the water board member,
said, “The process has been very collaborative so far. Everyone has come to
these meetings with the goal that we’re going to do the best recycling project
we can.”
In her memo, Hauser also asked district
board members not to confer with Hazard after public meetings.
“When I leave these meetings, I see
huddles in the parking lot afterward,” she wrote. “They are always the board
members elected by the Committee for Water Security and sometimes Mr. Hazard,
who is well known for advancing the Committee’s purpose … I should think board
members would want to avoid the appearance of collusion.”
But Coates said, “The Committee has not
met for six months. There’s no conspiracy here, there’s no cabal. Many of these
things are figments of people’s imagination.”
Just because Hazard favors district
consolidation doesn’t mean he has the support of the former slate for that idea,
Coates said, adding, “Please, let’s stay focused on what the voters asked us to
do.”