Community Services District adopts Water Supply Buffer Policy
–On Nov. 7, 2016, the Templeton Community Services Board of Directors adopted a Water Supply Buffer Policy. The purpose of the Water Supply Buffer Policy is to ensure district water supply reliability and redundancy for current and future district residents and customers. The policy provides a reliable process for evaluating water availability within the district’s water portfolio and reserves 20 percent of the district’s water supply to provide a buffer against potential problems with existing water supply sources that may include:
• Well failure
• Water contamination
• Nacimiento line failure
• Water quality issues
• Increased in number of private wells
• Adjudication
• Legislative changes
Water supply portfolio
The district’s water supply portfolio is made up of several sources. The water supply capacity is based on allocations from the State Water Permits, State Water License, Riparian Agency Agreements, groundwater from the Atascadero Basin, wastewater retrieval and Nacimiento water. The initial wastewater retrieval, providing a water supply of 164 acre-feet per year (AFY), began in 2005. After the Upper Salinas Conjunctive Use Project (US-CUP) is constructed, an additional water supply of up to 236 AFY will become available in 2022. The initial Nacimiento Water Project water supply of 245 AFY was added in 2014 and a future increase of Nacimiento water of 153 AFY is estimated to come on line in 2032. The actual dates of the new supplies coming on line are not fixed as the new water supplies discussed require additional infrastructure that is not yet built.
In addition to the current customer water demand, there are 784 water units that the district has issued will serve commitments to, but are not yet connected. To account for these outstanding units, the 784 water units were calculated at a fixed rate of 575 gallons per day (gpd) per unit. This is a conservative calculation based on the assumption that new connections will be utilized at full capacity.
Current use trends have been artificially depressed due to drought and mandatory conservation requirements in place. District water use has also been lower over the last three years (2014, 2015 & 2016) due to deferred maintenance on water lines such as line flushing and hydrant flushing. Since the long term effects of the conservation behavior is not fully known, the projected water production was
estimated using 10 points from the average annual water production over the last 12 years, removing the highest and lowest production years. The water demand forecast and proven available water supply will be updated on an annual basis to determine whether it is appropriate to release water units.
The main elements of the Water Supply Buffer Policy
The district shall maintain a Water Supply Buffer of not less than 20-percent of the available water portfolio. The district shall not release water units unless the water supply buffer is met. The district shall not release water units until available supply reliability is proven.
The district shall reevaluate production and proven available supply at the beginning of each calendar year.
The attached graph illustrates the water supply buffer policy data. The water production and consumption information are based on actual district water production and consumption. The projected water production was developed using 10 points from the average annual water production over the last 12 years, from 2004 through 2016, removing the highest and lowest production years.
The resulting average is very close to the 2013 production, which is used as the conservation baseline. Based on the current information, the district will reach a 20-percent water supply buffer once the Upper Salinas Conjunctive Use Project and the additional Nacimiento Water Project allocation are fully developed and available. Both of these projects required significant infrastructure.
