Nicasio landowners seeking trucked water from Marin Municipal Water District cleared a first hurdle this month, when a Marin commission that oversees local agencies approved a resolution to help them. The vote by the Marin Local Agency Formation Commission, or LAFCO, was paired with a decision to study the water district’s “sphere of influence,” or probable future boundaries. That study, conducted over the next five years, would examine whether 2,300 acres of Nicasio should be included in the district’s boundaries. Nicasio has no municipal water service and some landowners struggle with insufficient wells, particularly during drought conditions. A letter to LAFCO from the Nicasio Landowners Association attributes the problem of insufficient water supply in part to subpar testing criteria for wells in the past, which led to the approval of homes that didn’t always have an adequate water supply. “[S]ome Nicasio homeowners carry the legacy of these prior inadequate standards. Today, we have homes that are forced to truck in potable water to meet their basic water needs even during years of normal precipitation, and we also have a larger group of homes that routinely need water deliveries in dry years,” the association’s letter states. Since some Nicasio residents also want a short-term solution, LAFCO approved the new policy statement that would allow it to approve limited trucked water service. That decision doesn’t mean that the water district will agree to truck water, but rather that LAFCO doesn’t want to stand in the way. “What were trying to do is at least signal that, ‘Hey, if you and the landowners get together on this, don’t view LAFCO as a hurdle…’ We are trying to help,” said LAFCO’s executive director, Keene Simonds.