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Soquel Creek Water District Board Candidates: Vote November 8
COMMUNITY NEWS
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Question: Are you satisfied with the Soquel Creek Water District’s action to provide safe, clean water? Please address the rising rates.
Carla Christensen
As a Soquel Creek Water District Board member for 8 years and a customer for over 30 years, I am proud to have contributed to protecting our sole source of water from seawater contamination, a threat evident for over 30 years.
In 2015 our district’s aquifer was identified as one of most severely overdrafted in the state. The Board and District staff responded to this serious threat and now we are very close to completing a project that is the first new source of pure clean water in our county in 50 years. The State and Federal governments recognized our approach’s wisdom and view our success as a model for other endangered communities.
Down the road, we will be able to share the pure water we produce with our neighboring communities to benefit all of us as the mega-drought continues.
The project’s cost has always been foremost in our planning. The State Water Resources Control Board, the federal Bureau of Reclamation and the Environmental Protection Agency have awarded us enough grants and low-interest loans to finance 100% of the project. We will be able to keep rates low.
While we always strive to improve our performance, the combination of a strongly scientific-minded and financially aware board and staff have brought us our first chance at water sustainability in many decades.
Carla Christensen
Bruce Jaffe
Water is essential for life, for our environment, and for our economy. As a Director on the Soquel Creek Water Board, I will do everything I can to protect our water and to ensure that we have safe, clean drinking water for generations to come. We have a water deficit now because of pumping more water than was replenished in the 1980s and 1990s. Bruce Jaffe
Groundwater levels are up to 10s of feet below sea level near the coast and seawater intrusion has already started to pollute our groundwater basins with salt making the water undrinkable. With climate change increasing the frequency and severity of droughts in the future, we need to help Mother Nature, who will not provide enough rain to bring the groundwater levels above sea level to halt seawater intrusion.
We need a new supply of water and that is not cheap. But the cost of letting seawater pollute our groundwater basins, which would change our lives and cripple our economy, is $1 billion or more.
To reduce cost to our customer for a new water supply, I have worked hard to secure grants from State and Federal agencies totaling more than $80 million. This equates to more than $2,000 savings for each customer.
We are on the path to securing safe, clean water for the future, which includes avoiding the economic catastrophe of contaminated aquifer that would be rendered useless. n
For more info, see www.facebook. com/BruceJaffeforSoquelWaterBoard/ and https://facebook.com/ Elect Christensen, Jaffe, & Lather
Corrie Kates
There is always room for improvement. There is a need for more focus on maintenance and the delivery system.
This will improve reliability, water will be safer and clean for drinking along with reduced water waste. Also, there is a need to look at water resource opportunities and work more closely with other water agencies, local Corrie Kates leaders, federal and state agencies on how to improve, provide and lower rates.
One way on how this can be done is by sharing opportunities on water retention and the re-use of recycled water jointly.
“Kates” page 22
Kris Kirby
Of course we are all worried about our water nowadays. The current drought is making us all more aware than ever. I’m not as trusting of the new “Pure Water Soquel” recycled water system that is currently being created to be able to treat recycled “waste” water and inject it into our pristine aquafer.
Soquel Creek Water District won’t and can’t guarantee its purity. Water is one constant that we all drink, cook with, use to shower with, use daily and I get more concerned every time one more of my friends is diagnosed with some form of cancer.
Kris Kirby
“Kirby” page 23
Soquel Creek Water Responds to Grand Jury
The 2021-22 Santa Cruz County Grand Jury concluded a drought resilience action plan is needed and recommended the Santa Margarita Groundwater Management Agency and the Mid-County Groundwater Management Agency deliver drought resilience project planning and execution. The Soquel Creek Water District disagrees. n
For the full report of the Grand Jury findings and the Soquel Creek Water District response, see https://www. co.santa-cruz.ca.us/Departments/ GrandJury/2021-2022GrandJury ReportsandResponses.aspx
Rachél Lather
Iam proud of the work that the Soquel Creek Water District has completed to provide safe and clean drinking water to our customers.
In 2016 I ran for office because I was concerned about what I perceived as a lack of results in obtaining a long-term safe, sustainable water supply for the District. We now have Rachél Lather results with the construction of the Pure Water Soquel (PWS) project!
The PWS project will keep our sole source of water, groundwater, safe from seawater intrusion using purified recycled water.
This is done by placing purified recycled water into the groundwater at critical locations to create a barrier that prevents seawater from contaminating our groundwater.
In addition, by using recycled water we are utilizing a resource that will be available even during extended drought periods. This means we will have a sustainable water supply even during times of drought.
We have a small but mighty staff that have given us 110% of their time and effort in order to obtain grant funding for the Pure Water Soquel project so our rate payers will have to pay less for the new water source.
Currently, we have secured over $80 million in grants for the project and are hoping to find more funding before the project is completed.
