Dick Spotswood: Recently active MMWD needs to keep pushing projects

After years of dithering, late last month Marin Municipal Water District staff presented to the five-member board a project, hopefully the first of many, to provide water security for its 191,000 customers in Southern and Central Marin.

The $10 million plan is to pump water when needed from the water district’s smallest reservoir, Phoenix Lake, to the Bon Tempe Treatment Plant. Its staff says the goal is to transport “approximately 260-acre feet of water a year, improving drought resilience.” It’s a good first step.

As in the past, when plans are submitted, environmental activists object. They inevitably claim that any real-world effort to increase safe and secure water supplies will negatively affect the fish in the watershed.

For decades, MMWD has delayed action to increase drought resiliency to protect a handful of steelhead trout.

I like fish as much as anyone. At some point the fish folks’ single-minded effort to save a particular species of trout needs to be balanced with practical efforts to help human beings.

The public’s frustration over delays in increasing water supplies reached a peak two years ago. Marin had just endured another drought with resulting water rationing.

Voters’ collective anger was reflected in the election defeat of two veteran water board directors, Larry Bragman and Jack Gibson. The third director up for election in 2022, environmental attorney Cynthia Koehler, wisely resigned before balloting commenced.

These three directors were identified as members of a board of directors that tended to back off every time the environmentalists objected. To demonstrate action, they’d order another study and wait … and wait. That created a culture that favored investing in studies rather than construction.

The result of that election was three new directors, Jed Smith, Ranjiv Khush and Matt Sampson, who have since worked mightily to shift the board and staff culture from quibbling to action. The plan to build a pumping and distribution system from Phoenix Lake to the nearby Bon Tempe treatment plant is a good sign.

The water district didn’t ignore court-mandated concerns for trout in Ross and Corte Madera creeks. MMWD staff told the IJ that “the state-required environmental analysis already addressed the (environmentalists’) concerns and the project has been tailored accordingly.”

The upshot is that the pumping and distribution plan has been “paused.” Here we go again.

The hope is that when the matter comes back to the water board in July, the fish folks will be satisfied, and delay-inducting litigation will be avoided. Then, the goal of commencing construction this fall will be achieved.

Two water board posts are on November’s ballot.

MMWD’s longtime Division 5 Director Larry Russell, who represents Larkspur, the Tiburon Peninsula and parts of Corte Madera, sees his term expire this year. In San Rafael, first-term Director Monty Schmitt is seriously pondering whether to make a run for reelection. Schmitt has been a consistent advocate for increased water supplies.

The upcoming election will provide voters with another opportunity to elect MMWD directors who prioritize providing additional water supplies to improve drought resiliency.

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The water board isn’t the only agency that procrastinates. It’s time the Metropolitan Transportation Commission got into gear. They need to promptly conclude their Richmond-San Rafael Bridge “pilot project” that is testing the usefulness of the upper deck bike and pedestrian path.

The solution isn’t complicated. Limit the bike lane to weekends when recreational cyclists and hikers are more likely to cross the windy span. Shift the existing movable barrier protecting the bike path thus allowing a third lane for auto, bus and truck traffic. Provide a Caltrans-operated vehicle to carry the handful of cyclists and their bikes who’d like to cross the Marin to Contra Costa County bridge on weekdays.

Columnist Dick Spotswood of Mill Valley writes on local issues Sundays and Wednesdays. Email him at spotswood@comcast.net.