Petaluma hit with water rate increase

The city of Petaluma will soon pay more for the water it gets wholesale from the Sonoma County Water Agency, an increase that will trickle down to local ratepayers.|

The city of Petaluma will soon pay more for the water it gets wholesale from the Sonoma County Water Agency, an increase that will trickle down to local ratepayers.

Petaluma will pay 5.98 percent more for the water it receives through the Petaluma Aqueduct, the smallest wholesale increase among contractors that sell Agency water back to local customers. The largest wholesale increase, at 6.94 percent, will be for the Sonoma Valley, which receives water through the Sonoma aqueduct.

Since Petaluma charges ratepayers on a pass-through system, local residents and businesses will also see their water rates rise by around 6 percent on July 1, said Kent Carothers, operations manager for the city of Petaluma. Rates rose 2.8 percent in January.

The increase comes as the more than 600,000 residents served by the Water Agency’s systems have drastically cut their use amid an ongoing drought, resulting in a 20 percent drop in agency revenue that would otherwise go toward maintaining its transmission lines. With ongoing maintenance costs and fewer sales, the Agency must turn to its wholesalers to make up the difference.

Recent rains have meanwhile put Sonoma County’s water reserves in their best shape in years, prompting one Petaluma elected official to continue a call for changes to Sacramento’s blanket policy forcing Sonoma County residents to comply with the same restrictions on use as drier parts of the state.

“Our situation is great. Our reservoirs are full. There’s no drought here,” said Mike Healy, a Petaluma city councilman who chairs a group representing the Water Agency’s nine wholesale customers. “We need to preserve credibility with our customers.”

The increase in wholesale rates will help fund a $47.88 million budget to improve and maintain the system, including a $10.9 million project to bolster earthquake protections for pipelines crossing under the Russian River and Mark West Creek.

The agency was able to offset a potential wholesale price increase in excess of 20 percent by cutting its own internal costs and funding a portion of the necessary work through federal grants, according to information from the Water Agency.

“Because of the drought and much-needed water conservation, people have significantly cut back on their usage. That has reduced our revenue,” said Michael Gossman, a Water Agency finance division manager. “But unfortunately, just because demand for water goes down, that doesn’t mean our system operations and maintenance demand go down. We have to find a way to cover those ongoing costs.”

An average single-family customer in Petaluma using 8,976 gallons per month currently pays $51.11, including fixed service charges. Such a user would pay $53.73 after the increase, which reflects an overall bump of 5.13 percent.

Petaluma’s Corothers noted that other water suppliers in the Bay Area facing their own declining revenues have not been able to offset their costs as successfully.

“The 6 percent increase, compared to other water agencies in the Bay Area, this is a really small increase,” he said. “East Bay MUD, and down on the penninsula, they are look at 15, 20, percent increases.”

In contrast to the ongoing statewide mandate to reduce water use and a regional willingness to comply, the North Bay’s primary reservoirs are today at or near maximum capacity, Healy noted. The Water Agency’s largest reservoir, Lake Sonoma, was at 99.8 percent of capacity as of April 25, exceeding a 10-year average, according to agency data.

Healy argued in an April 18 letter to the state water regulators that local customers were frankly “not stupid” in their awareness of local water storage levels, and that the continued mandate was equivalent to crying wolf in a region where water infrastructure is isolated from other areas of the state. The contrast may lessen the public willingness to conserve water in the event that future supplies were legitimately limited, and could potentially compromise a 36 percent regional water reduction seen since the year 2000, he said.

“This doesn’t mean we don’t want to continue our long-term conservation efforts,” Healy said, emphasizing the permanence of efforts like water-stingy landscaping conversions and the ongoing expansion of Petaluma’s infrastructure to irrigate using highly treated wastewater.

The California State Water Resources Control Board has administered the emergency drought regulations, which have required urban water suppliers to achieve a 25 percent reduction in per-capita use compared to 2013 levels.

The agency is expected to publish new draft regulations in early May, and to adopt the framework during a May 18 hearing, Healy said. The new regulations, which may include measures specific to wetter regions like Sonoma County, will go into effect June 1.

“The worst-case scenario is it will be a continuation of what we have now. But there seems to be a real recognition that they want to make a differentiation with the different areas of the state in different situations,” he said.

(Contact Eric Gneckow at eric.gneckow@arguscourier.com. On Twitter @Eric_Reports. Press Democrat Staff Writer Angela Hart contributed to this report.)

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