Aide to Supervisor Steve Kinsey and Woodacre resident Liza Crosse, who was appointed to the Marin Municipal Water District’s five-member board of directors in 2012 after a retirement, has drawn a challenger as she prepares for her first appearance on a Marin ballot this November: Larry Bragman, a member of Fairfax’s town council and the current vice mayor.
The race for Division 3, which covers the San Geronimo Valley, Fairfax and other portions of Marin, is shaping up to be one of the highest-profile contests in November. Ms. Crosse’s challenger has raised issues sure to attract the attention of voters: herbicide use and the possibility of a pipe to transport water from an East Bay district during multi-year droughts, which Ms. Crosse’s opponent has claimed could eventually lead to increased development (an assertion she vehemently denies).
Ms. Crosse has a long list of endorsements, including Rep. Jared Huffman, former Rep. Lynn Woolsey, the entire water district board, three county supervisors and a supervisor-elect. She can also rattle off the water-related boards and committees she has sat on over the years—the Lagunitas Creek Technical Advisory Committee, the Tomales Bay Watershed Council and the district’s Water Rates Advisory Committee—which she said has provided perspective on not just the environmental but the financial considerations of the district.
Mr. Bragman, a Wisconsin native who moved to Marin in 1979, is a civil and criminal attorney who has served on Fairfax’s town council for 11 years. He first ran for office, in 2003, for the same reasons he’s running for the water board seat. “I wanted to maintain a more progressive environmental direction for the Town of Fairfax. It’s a similar situation with the water board. We’re at a real decision point as far as our water policy is concerned here in Marin,” he said.
He has been endorsed by the Sierra Club, the Marin Peace and Justice Coalition, the Social Justice Center of Marin and the Marin Water Coalition, which opposes fluoridation.
One of the major issues in the race is a $250,000 feasibility study, to be completed in 2016, on the possibility of building an estimated $45 million pipeline across the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge, connecting the district to the East Bay Municipal Utility District and to use during dangerously dry years. (A temporary pipeline was built across the bridge during the 1976-1977 drought, then dismantled.) The study was triggered by reservoirs drying up last winter after the county received the lowest ever recorded rainfall in 2013.
Ms. Crosse said the district is working to create new conservation measures to prepare for future droughts; it replaced 1,000 residential toilets with high-efficiency ones over the past year, more recycled wastewater projects are underway and she said they’re working on a “cash for grass” program, in which water districts offer money for homeowners who replace grassy lawns with drought-resistant plants.
But although programs can save water, Ms. Crosse said the looming threat of climate change, which could spur extreme weather events, required the board to plan for multi-year emergencies.
Mr. Bragman isn’t convinced; he believes the study proves the district wants the intertie, which he says could invite development. “I don’t think you build a public works project of that magnitude and let it sit there unused,” he said. He is also worried that if the East Bay builds a desalination plant, Marin residents will be drinking desalinated water.
“Conservation and efficiency is the least expensive and the least impactful way for us to create a secure water supply,” he said. He also questioned whether there would be guarantees of water on the pipeline’s other end during a drought.
But Ms. Crosse argued that contingency planning for a multi-year drought is the responsible thing to do. We’d be irresponsible if we didn’t,” she said.
She also rebutted her opponent’s claim that an intertie could spur development. “Not only is that false, but we don’t need more water to serve anybody in normal years. We have enough water. We are really truly only trying to plan for multi-year drought. In January, we were in a total panic. We had 14 months of water. That is a dangerous situation to be in.”
Another point of contention is the district’s Wildfire Protection and Habitat Improvement Plan, for which Ms. Crosse said an environmental impact report is due next spring or early summer. The district is undertaking the plan because of dangerous fuel loads in areas it has been unable to manage with more natural methods, such as goat grazing and so-called organic pesticides like salt slurry.
Though both Ms. Crosse and Mr. Bragman agree that broom and starthistle pose a serous wildfire threat on district lands, their views on the use of herbicides diverge: Mr. Bragman is adamantly opposed, while Ms. Crosse says she is waiting for the results of the environmental analysis before taking a stance.
In its draft plan, the district outlined two options for combating the problem. One approach uses techniques like hand removal, mowing and controlled burns, which could cost over $5 million annually. The other plan, at a $1.6 million annual cost, would employ the same techniques but also utilize herbicides like glyphosate, often sold as Round Up.
Ms. Crosse, who described the vegetation as a “firebomb waiting to go off,” said the status quo was not acceptable. Still, “I want the facts from the E.I.R. and I want the public discussion,” she said.
Mr. Bragman agreed that fire was a major threat—“the number one disaster that most of the community surrounding the watershed is really facing,” he said. But he went on that what scientists might call safe today, even in low doses, could change a few decades into the future. He said he’d seen studies in Australia about a “critter,” Arytinnis hakani, which is a natural predator in other countries where broom is native; he thinks the district should investigate it as a potential way to control broom. Though studies he cited describe its use in conjunction with herbicides, he said he couldn’t stomach the thought of such chemicals on plants—however tenacious—amidst the watershed.
“I believe in the precautionary principle, especially when dealing with the management of a watershed which is supplying drinking water to the local population,” he said.