The Other Drought

State Senator Mike McGuire was in Mendocino County this week for a rather pathetic photo op. 

On his facebook page McGuire posted:

“A big water storage project is coming to the community of Mendocino - 500k gallon water storage tank and new water wells! This has been a 100% partnership between the District and the State with nearly $5 million in State drought relief funds being invested. Grateful for the coordinating meeting with Supervisor Williams, the Mendocino Community Services District, Mendocino Unified School District and the Mendocino Volunteer Fire Dept. A lot more work and information ahead!”

All the comments on McGuire’s own facebook page were irrationally jubilant.

But on Mendocino News Plus there was some skepticism.

Mendo resident Deirdre Lamb quickly commented: “I went to a recent water meeting, MCCSD Director Ryan Rhoades says it's going to take 2-3 years to install.”

Mendo resident Skip Taube asked: “Why will it take 5 YEARS to get permits to begin building the tank if this is emergency funding?”

Former Fifth District Supervisorial Candidate John Redding: “This project, needed to be sure, is the result of begging the state for a few crumbs. Not a sustainable model. Moreover, it will take 5 years to get permitted and completed and then — the water will be used as a last resort. The next to last resort is running out of water to buy. This is what passes for progress here. Sigh.”

There were no responses to these comments. 

Back in March after McGuire and Williams first announced this grant award with great fanfare, local reporter Michelle Blackwell provided some additional details:

“The grant will allow the Mendocino Water District to begin the necessary planning processes that will be required to build a 500,000-gallon storage tank for emergency water supplies. These supplies can be used in times of drought and for fire suppression. … Two new wells will be drilled to fill the larger emergency tank during the rainy season when water is abundant. It would then be cycled through the school district systems to prevent it from becoming stale. During drought, the 500,000 gallons would be able to mitigate the empty wells and expensive refills district residents faced during the summer and fall of 2021. … Although District Manager Rhodes estimates it will take five years to break ground, it’s a step toward self-sufficiency. The five-year timeline assumes a full CEQA process as well as additional reviews that will likely be required by the Coastal Commission and the State.”

* * *

We commented at the time:

“If State Senator McGuire really wanted to help with the drought problem he would have written some environmental review waivers into the grant language — can’t we skip the EIR for a tank and some wells and plumbing to help the drought problem now? It’s an “emergency” after all — so that the District could begin construction of the tank on an emergency basis. Instead, we get a jubilant but detail free press release from McGuire and a forwarding brag from Supervisor Williams about how wonderful this big grant is. Then we have to wait until a local reporter quietly points out that they don’t even expect to ‘break ground’ on the ‘emergency’ project for at least five years, Thanks a lot, Mike and Ted. No rush; take your time.” 

This $5 million project seems to be one component of the County’s recent announcement that “the County” had received about $28 million in “drought relief” grant funding. We have been unable to figure out how they arrived at that figure or what it will allegedly fund because it’s all over the map and particulars are few and far between. (We do know that it does not include the Boonville Water/Wastewater project which the state has provided over $1 million in planning for.) We also know that very little of that $28 million is going to anything that the County initiated or will manage. Some of it is going to Fort Bragg which continues to develop helpful water projects (tanks, desalination of brackish water, the Summers Lane reservoir, system repairs and upgrades, etc.)

Mendo’s minimal “Water Agency” has a “drought funding” page which has no info on actual projects. It begins:

“It's no secret that Mendocino County is in a historic drought and the County and local agencies are working hard to alleviate water shortages. But how is it all being paid for and how are we preparing for the future? For the past few months, local water suppliers have been developing projects to submit for emergency drought funding, both to help deliver water for immediate use and to implement projects for long-term resiliency. This page will host information for local agency partners about drought funding opportunities!”

When we asked the Water Agency a few months ago for a list of the “projects” that “local water suppliers have been developing,” they replied — a surprise to no one — that none have been developed or proposed or submitted for funding. 

Even in a “drought emergency” California and Mendocino County can’t get out of their own way for the simplest of water projects. What kind of environmental impact would a tank and plumbing project in the town of Mendocino have that requires that full EIR and Coastal Development Permit processes? 

In Boonville, the state paid for, among other things, a full environmental impact report as part of the $1 million-plus planning effort. That effort is now going on seven years long and they still have yet to propose an actual “project,” even with a local team of enthusiastic volunteers who have been bird-dogging it monthly. They polled locals, they polled a long laundry list of state agencies… Upshot, there’s no significant environmental impact, but it added years and hundreds of thousands of dollars to the project planning. 

No wonder very few people supported the water segment sales tax proposal that Supervisors McGourty and Mulheren unsuccessfully pushed last month. Even if they got the money, the odds are that it wouldn’t fund any actual water projects, just more studies and grant applications and consultants and staff and lawyers and so forth. We understand that even some of the inland Cheap Water Mafia were unenthusiastic about throwing more money at trying to get state grants. The only idea they seem to have that’s even close to a “project” is raising Coyote Dam and even if they could get the millions of dollars worth of promises and grants involved in such a major project, it would take decades to do, at best. And these days, since the Cheap Water Mafia and everybody else has their pipes in Lake Mendocino as the drought deepens, the odds that Lake Mendocino would ever have enough water to fill a higher lake are very low. 

Mendo should focus on conservation and small drinking water projects and stop pretending that pulling down state money for non-existent or decades off projects will do anybody any good in our lifetime.

PS. In McGuire’s facebook photo op pic, we couldn’t help noticing that there appears to be more glasses of water at the table than participants.