Editorial: Regardless of outcome, Marin must explore reservoir expansions

Those stunning warnings in 2021 that the Marin Municipal Water District was within months of running out of water led voters to demand change.

In the 2022 election, that frustration was evident as voters elected three new directors.

The historic drought has taken a toll on the district’s chain of reservoirs, the capacity of which it relies to meet the water needs of the communities MMWD serves. The Lake Sonoma reservoir, which MMWD relies on to import about 25% of its supply, was also depleted by the drought and its releases restricted.

The drought was a huge test of the district’s long held policy of maintaining its supply through conservation.

The prolonged drought proved that conservation, while vitally necessary, wasn’t enough — and the district was caught in a crisis.

Rain returned and refilled the district’s reservoirs, but didn’t allay ratepayers’ frustration.

The new board has been working diligently to explore possible sources for increasing MMWD’s supply with the aim of not being caught nearly high and dry again.

Climate change promises to challenge the district’s supply again and directors are working to develop short- and long-term plans to bolster its ability to withstand another multiyear drought.

That includes looking at increasing the capacity of the district’s reservoirs – a strategy that had been indefinitely tabled by previous boards.

The new board has been re-evaluating that decision, taking a hard look at the viability – from both financial and engineering standpoints – of expanding its reservoirs.

It is fulfilling a “new approach” promise that voters expected after the 2022 election.

The review has come up with a short list of potential projects, among them expanding Kent Lake, the district’s largest reservoir, creating a new reservoir in upper Nicasio and raising the Soulajule dam in the hills of Novato.

Those proposals have already generated opposition.

Some of it has come from veteran board member Larry Russell.

He’s been blunt, contending the district is wasting time and money on a costly and controversial exercise.

“Pie in the sky is pie in the sky,” says Russell. “You have to look at this cold-heartedly from a pure engineering feasibility standpoint, and you know, there’s just better places to spend the money. It’s as simple as that to my mind.”

The full board may ultimately reach the same conclusion.

But district ratepayers expect no stone left unturned in the search for solutions to bolster the resilience of the district’s supply.

Ratepayers, who were required to significantly reduce their household and business water use and still faced the peril of running short of water, want solutions.

If Russell is right, the board can point to having diligently explored the potential of expanding its reservoirs.

Russell, however, is not the only doubter.

The proposal to expand Soulajule has generated opposition from neighboring ranchers who fear they will lose acreage to the project.

Those impacts and the cost of acquiring the land need to be built into what district staff is calling its “white paper exercise” on the viability of that strategy.

It’s been 40 years since the district has significantly expanded its supply.

A couple of costly – and controversial – trials with building a desalination plant were tried, but scrapped.

The board opted to rely on conservation, which was tested by the drought.

The strategy also creates a scenario all too familiar to MMWD ratepayers where they wind up paying more for having used less water.

Forty years is a long time.

The 2021 crisis was enough to put the issue of expanding its supply back on the table.

That’s what the board is doing, taking a hard look at the potential with practical, public and forthright planning to develop a can-do strategy to be better prepared.