(Tulare County) County to respond to grand jury’s water report

September 6, 2014

The Porterville Recorder

By Kelli Ballard

The Tulare County Board of Supervisors will be approving the draft letter to the Tulare County grand jury final report on the water situation in the county for the 2013/14 fiscal year during Tuesday’s meeting. The letter states the board is in at least partial agreement with the majority of the findings including the need for potable water and improvement of basic infrastructure in certain communities.

The grand jury found water districts tend to raise consumer water rates during times of a drought and “the response by the public is to conserve water in order to keep the bills down. This becomes a vicious cycle.”

However, the Supervisors’ response was to neither agree or disagree, stating it was “generally correct” that maintenance costs of public water systems could increase during water shortages.

Many communities are purchasing bottled water for drinking and, according to the grand jury’s report, low-income residents may not be able to afford to purchase the water and could become ill or face health risks. It also suggested decreases in the water table and water pressure could produce higher levels of arsenic and other contaminates. The Supervisors’ draft letter suggests they partially agree with the findings, but cite different circumstances that would affect the possibility of illness from drinking water that may be contaminated such as location, hydrology, land use and environmental factors.

The Supervisors completely disagree with the grand jury’s findings that the efforts to collect and conserve water will be in vain without more rainwater. “Efforts to collect and conserve water are not in vain,” states the draft letter. “To be good stewards of the environment, public and private water management practices should be encouraged irrespective of whether drought conditions exist.”

The grand jury also found that water infrastructure in all the communities in the county is old and needs costly repairs and updating. The panel also suggested the county apply for any available federal and state grants for unincorporated areas needing potable water.

The Supervisors listed several projects being worked on, such as the Seville water quality problem and the county-wide Emergency Bottled Water Distribution Program.