Should Nicasio, where all homes source water from wells vulnerable to drought, be able to tap into Marin’s largest water supplier? It’s a discussion the county’s Local Agency Formation Commission, or LAFCO, is trying to jumpstart.
A draft report released this month, which is now open for public comment, suggests that it may be advisable for Marin Municipal Water District to someday fold 23,000 acres of Nicasio into its “sphere of influence”—or the area that a government or special district serves or could likely serve in the future.
Though residents would likely eschew a new pipeline, they may be interested in a firm agreement to secure trucked water in difficult times, which Nicasio attempted with Marin Municipal during past dry times, without success.
“This report is the first signal that, hey, there’s a process under state law as to how to provide potable water. We want to look into this. What say you?” said Keene Simonds, LAFCO’s executive director.
One of LAFCO’s duties is to report on local agencies’ spheres of influence every five years, each time offering a “10-year horizon” on likely boundary changes. According to LAFCO, governments and special districts should only offer routine municipal services in areas within those spheres of influences, whether that means an actual pipeline or an agreement to truck water.
In its new report, the commission is not suggesting an immediate change; instead, it says the conversation could start now, with the potential to make changes in five years, the next time it provides an update on the sphere. The time lag gives the commission an opportunity for a more thorough analysis.
The commission’s interest in Nicasio, which has about 300 homes, first arose during a county water study it completed earlier this year, Mr. Simonds said. The new reports says there is “growing interest” from landowners in receiving water assistance because of problems with wells.
A small number of people always struggle with water because soil conditions in some areas of town are not ideal for holding groundwater.
During the recent drought, more people than usual started trucking in water, said Eric Blantz, a board member of the Nicasio Landowners Association, in 2014. At that time, locals discussed communal purchases of water from Marin Municipal, but those conversations stalled, in part because the drought was also taxing that district’s own water sources; Marin Municipal said agreements outside its service area were contingent on it having a “surplus” of water.
After discussions with M.M.W.D. were put on hold, North Marin Water District agreed to sell the town trucked water, Mr. Blantz said. But, he added, N.M.W.D. did not believe it was its responsibility for routinely supplying Nicasio with extra water.
LAFCO says an agreement between Nicasio and M.M.W.D. for regular water deliveries would need the commission’s approval, which the report said would be “difficult to enact without conforming to the agency’s sphere of influence.”
The commission also notes that, until this year, Nicasio was considered a “disadvantaged unincorporated community,” defined as a community whose median income is less than 80 percent of the state median income. The commission is charged with improving these communities’ access to water, sewer and fire protection services.
That may come as a surprise to some, given that properties in Nicasio sell for millions of dollars. The designation was made three or four years ago by the Department of Water Resources, Mr. Simonds said, based on 2010 census data.
More current data shows Nicasio’s median income is $69,000 a year—substantially above the state median of $61,000.
But Mr. Simonds said the commission could theoretically come up with its own definition based on local incomes. Nicasio still sits well below Marin’s median income of $91,000, he said.
A review over the next five years would help the commission determine whether interest is broad or limited to just a few landowners. That information is critical, because though the state will bear the cost of analyzing the town’s options, securing service from Marin Municipal would likely take a serious financial commitment from the village.
Mr. Simonds also said there may be concerns about whether regular water service could be “growth inducing,” an issue the commission will examine. “That’s certainly a sensitive topic to LAFCO,” he said.
Yet he also noted that it is becoming “harder, not easier, to rely on groundwater. So in the long term, what should government do? That is what we are tasked with addressing.”
Eventually, LAFCO could draft a few water service options, including different geographic boundaries and conduits for service, as well as the costs, infrastructure requirements and other consequences for each.
Mr. Blantz, the landowner association board member, said he had not known of the report before being alerted by the Light, but he welcomed it. “My reading of it currently is, essentially, that it increases the likelihood of us being able to advance conversations with M.M.W.D.” to secure trucked water. He said locals hope to meet with the commission “to talk directly about the report and time frames and what this means.”
Today, the situation is better because of the recent wet season, and some of the concerns have quieted, Mr. Blantz said. Still, the town would probably like the security of an agreement of some kind. And though the impacts of climate change are unclear, some worry that if rainfall patterns change—particularly if steady rains decline and bigger storms become the norm—groundwater reserves may suffer.
“People here have no desire or appetite for what would be involved in piping water into Nicasio. I don’t think that’s in the cards. But if the sphere of influence or an ‘annex’ includes an obligation to provide water without plumbing, those conversations would all be worth having,” he said. “Hopefully we now have the political space and the meteorological space to work something out.”
The draft report is available at marinlafco.com/PDF/staff-reports/2016/8-11-16_AgendaItem10_MMWD-SOI.pdf. Comments can be emailed to [email protected] by Sept. 30.