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Will Tracy's Boom Bust the Delta?
Skyrocketing Bay Area housing prices aren't just driving would-be homeowners to distraction; they're also driving a Delta-area growth explosion that's turning once-sleepy farm towns into bedroom communities. The transformation of corn and tomato fields into cul-de-sacs is creating expensive challenges for area cities such as Tracy and raising serious questions about the cumulative impact on Delta water quality, as well as supply. Some think the burden on the state's water will be unsustainable in the long term.
"The issues are more noticeable in Tracy because of the speed of growth, but they're a harbinger of the difficulties that mid-size cities throughout the region face," says the Sierra Club's Eric Parfrey. Following a population increase of about 70% in the 1990s, the city has grown 6% to 8% in each of the past three years, and now stands at about 65,000. In comparison, the state as a whole grows at approximately 1.5% per year, says Parfrey. And there's little question where all the new residents are coming from: nearly 70% of the families buying homes in Tracy's new communities rely on at least one Bay Area paycheck.
Although Tracy's growth is among the fastest, it is far from unique in the Delta region. According to statistics compiled by the Great Valley Center, Sacramento County's population jumped from 788,000 in 1980 to 1,212,000 in 2000, while San Joaquin County grew from 350,000 to approximately 580,00 and Yolo from 113,800 to 164,000 in the same period.
Of course, all those new people need water, and it's by no means news that meeting those needs in a state where conflicting demands for water are a way of life presents a challenge. Tracy's water demand currently grows by 600 acre feet per year (af/yr), although that rate is expected to slack off as a slow growth measure passed by voters in 2000 goes into effect over the next few years, according to the city's Nick Pinhey. Nevertheless, says Parfrey, barring a couple of wet years, the city will be facing a water deficit by 2004. The city plans to fill the gap through a combination of water purchases and groundwater pumping, says Pinhey. However, that may be wishful thinking: a 40,000 af/yr water transfer from the South San Joaquin Irrigation District to Tracy, Lathrop, Manteca and Escalon is headed for an appellate court later this fall, and two water contract "reassignments" of 5,000 af each from the Westside Irrigation District and Banta Carbona Irrigation District also face likely legal challenges.
An even more difficult task than supplying freshwater to thousands of new residents may be disposing of their wastewater. This summer, environmental groups, the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board, and several water agencies challenged a Draft Environmental Impact Report on the planned expansion and upgrade of Tracy's wastewater treatment plant, which discharges into Old River not far from intake pumps for the Delta Mendota Canal and the California Aqueduct. Although the improvement plans - which will boost the plant's capacity to
16 million gallons per day (mgd) and are projected to cost $14.4 million over the next ten years - call for tertiary-level wastewater treatment, critics say that as outlined in the DEIR, the plant expansion would degrade the already-impaired receiving waters.
"There is just no capacity in Old River for some of the constituents they want to discharge," says DeltaKeeper Bill Jennings. "Nutrients are very high, and salt levels are critical." Indeed, adds Parfrey, "If the water that farmers are pumping out of the river gets much saltier, they will start to be limited in the types of crops they can grow."
Due to the hydrodynamics of Old River, which are heavily influenced by the pumps and barriers that send Delta water south, the Regional Board found that Tracy's plan had "potential for very little dilution and multiple dosing of effluent," says the Board's Pat Leary. The Board has asked the city to provide additional information on dilution in the vicinity of the plant's outfall, and has requested that the city include a real-time monitoring device near the outfall as part of the plant upgrade, steps that the cities of Manteca and Stockton have already agreed to take. Issues of this kind are not uncommon in the region, says Leary. "Determinations of available dilution are becoming increasingly difficult and contentious," she says, as restrictions on allowable discharges to already polluted waters get tighter.
Because of these restrictions, Tracy, along with several other Delta cities, is also looking toward so-called land disposal, whereby treated wastewater is used to irrigate landscaping and low-value crops such as alfalfa. According to Pinhey, the city has an opportunity to purchase 1,250 acres immediately adjacent to the wastewater treatment plant and is investigating the feasibility of using the property for land disposal. Among the issues being explored are whether there are farmers willing to lease the land and what types of irrigation systems would be required.
Although the Basin Plan directs the Regional Board to encourage land disposal, such alternatives are not without significant costs and difficulties. Large amounts of land are required -Pinhey says 1,250 acres is enough to dispose of 2 mgd of wastewater - and only low-value crops that will not be consumed by humans can be grown on it. Furthermore, says the Regional Board's Wendy Wiles, the wastewater can't spill over into surface waters and can't be applied before, during, or after rainstorms, so any land disposal system must include enough storage to contain a 100-year storm event.
Tracy's growth, together with recent changes in the law, also means that for the first time the city must apply for a federal NPDES permit to discharge stormwater, which is now required for all cities of 50,000 people or more. Tracy's city council recently allocated $13 million for the first phase of a storm drain system that will carry stormwater from the city's fast-growing west side-where the only existing regional detention basin doubles as a series of soccer fields-to a new 60-acre detention basin. The city will obtain an NPDES permit in 2003, and expects to be required to implement a pollution prevention program.
Clearly Tracy's stormwater and wastewater systems are already facing functional challenges due to the area's rapid growth; nevertheless, the growth is expected to continue apace. In Tracy alone, the General Plan calls for up to 25,000 new homes in the coming years. Region-wide, state Department of Finance projections say, the populations of San Joaquin and Stanislaus counties will roughly double by 2040, to approximately 1,250,000 and 999,000, respectively. Sacramento County will jump from 1,212,527 in 2000 to 2,122,769 in 2040, and Yolo County from 164,010 to 298,350 during the same period.
No one seems to know just what the impact of all these new people will be, particularly on water quality, and no mechanisms are in place to weigh new development in a larger context. In comments on Tracy's wastewater plant DEIR, the Regional Board faults the proposal for failing to address the cumulative effects of increasing pollutant loads by several dischargers, noting that "this effect will be negative with no changes in Delta management." However, everyone seems to acknowledge that with its legally required focus on developing NPDES permits and meeting daily local pollutant load (TMDL) standards, the Board has neither money nor manpower to evaluate cumulative effects itself. Nevertheless, says the Board's Leary, "We do try to evaluate each project as it might affect another project nearby."
Walt Pettit of California Urban Water Agencies, which has been pressing the Regional Board for years to develop drinking water standards for the Delta - and has even set aside money in its budget to help - says the TMDLs may help, although he believes they are too narrowly focused. "There needs to be some integration to look at this on a watershed-wide basis," he says, adding that he hopes CALFED will direct some money to the issue. But the problem may be even more fundamental.
Says Parfrey, "At some point we've got to ask if it is technologically possible to serve another half a million people within a stone's throw of the Delta without a huge impact on water quality and soil salinity."
Contact: Eric Parfrey (510)420-8686; Nick Pinhey (209)831 4431; Pat Leary (916)255-3000 CH
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