Water district preps for more dry wells

As efforts continue to extend water service to Rancho Calaveras residents whose wells are running dry, the Calaveras County Water District is preparing for more such requests in the future.

The subdivision’s pleas for help began less than a year after homeowners from the Copperopolis-area Diamond XX development came to the district for help. Many directors expect dozens more communities to see their wells go dry in the decade ahead.
  

“That’s just the tip of the iceberg,” said Director Jeff Davidson at Wednesday’s CCWD board meeting. The county’s aging utility infrastructure, flat home prices and dwindling groundwater will all push that trend, he argued.

The district is pursuing setting up an assessment district to finance the roughly $1 million cost of extending water lines to the lots along Da Lee and Cassidy roads in Rancho Calaveras. An assessment district would allow CCWD to sell bonds to raise money for the project, then repay the bond through assessments on the residents’ property tax bills.

But in researching the effort, staff members found CCWD does not have a well-defined approach to creating such districts. “Our policy is lacking,” Steve Hutchings, district engineer, told the board.

The 1980 resolution that lays out CCWD’s policy on establishing assessment districts consists of three broadly worded paragraphs.

One problem facing the current process is that the first step — a petition that must be signed by 60 percent of the property owners in the affected area — is not clearly defined.

Staff is working on both a general format for future petitions — a narrative of the process, description of improvements and map will likely be required — and a specific petition for the Rancho Calaveras residents.

Larry Diamond, interim general manager, hopes the project’s petition will be completed by mid-July.

The current policy also lacks a mechanism to fully reimburse the district for staff time spent on establishing special districts.

The current policy charges the concerned property owners a processing fee of $100 per parcel, with a minimum charge of $5,000.

But Jeff Meyer, finance director, estimated the price tag for setting up the Rancho Calaveras district could reach $25,000.

And if fewer that 60 percent of property owners sign up in support, no fees are paid. Diamond said this has happened with a number of past efforts.

“When they haven’t been successful, the district ate the cost,” he said.

Setting aside compensation for the staff time, no money has been budgeted for doing an assessment proceeding this year, according to Meyer, complicating proceeding with the Rancho Calaveras effort.

A workshop on the policy is in the works.

Aside from policy issues, past assessment districts have led to CCWD being forced to foreclose on delinquent landowners.  

“I want everyone to go in with their eyes open on this,” Diamond told the board. “We’ve have a little bit of a tough time with other assessment districts.”

Landowners in an assessment district must pay their share — “kicking and screaming,” as Director Dennis Dooley put it — whether they signed in support or not.

A $4 million group of bonds sold in 1998 is still being collected on, with some foreclosures already completed and others on the way, according to reports from staff during the meeting.

“It was a terrible thing for the district,” Director Davidson said.

But, responding to concerns that the Rancho Calaveras project could end the same way, he added: “I don’t see very many parallels to this.”

Bill Perley, utilities director, said that, from his end of things, the district actually stands to save money by extending the water mains in Rancho Calaveras, as the pipes’ current configuration requires frequent flushing.