Neighbors seek piped-in water

600 homes north of Clovis could pay $1,500 a year
By Marc Benjamin / The Fresno Bee

(Updated Monday, August 15, 2005, 6:01 AM)

Residents in a neighborhood of about 600 homes north of Clovis will likely be asked to pay more than $1,500 a year to pipe water to their community to end water shortages.
Ground-water shortages have existed for years in the neighborhood that includes Appaloosa Acres, Horseshoe Bend and Shenandoah Farms, as well as hundreds of individual parcels north of Shepherd Avenue and roughly between Sunnyside and Armstrong avenues.
Water there hides in a labyrinth of underground rock fissures. There are no subterranean rivers — known as aquifers — and wells for some residents have slowed to a trickle.
Tiring of the continuous problems, the community last year began seeking solutions. A study, which residents paid $25,000 for, gave three preferred options:
Piping water from either Clovis or Fresno, both of which have water-treatment plants.
Or building a stand-alone water-treatment plant for the community.
The engineer's report suggested removing two options, one proposing recharge, and another plan to pipe in water from Garfield Irrigation District.
Residents prefer piping water, which could be less expensive than the treatment-plant option.
Peter Hammar, secretary of the Dry Creek Rural Water Association, is nursing four trees and brown grass on his 2.5-acre parcel.
"My well is very weak, and I would rather spend that money on a permanent solution instead of trying to punch a $15,000 well in, and I may hit nothing," he said.
Piping from a city will relieve residents of the expense of trucking water to their homes, having wells deepened or replaced, enlarging storage tanks or finding no water at all on their properties.
Fresno County supervisors Tuesday will discuss forming a community service area to serve these neighborhoods. That will create a community that could later vote to tax itself to pay for water service.
Fresno County will negotiate with the cities of Fresno and Clovis and the Fresno Irrigation District on piping and treating the water that goes to the community.
"This group of people is at the mercy of the negotiators for their solutions," said Al deHaai, the engineer who coordinated the report for Fresno-based Provost & Pritchard.
The expense for residents could be between $100 and $150 per month depending on costs for water development, acquiring water, water treatment, piping and other construction costs.
Residents will be metered and billed for water they use. The assessment also will pay $150,000 in annual administrative costs for a community service area.
Supervisors also might vote to limit growth in the area.
Janet Dailey, Fresno County's design division manager, said one hookup per parcel will be allowed under the county's proposal, meaning additional growth will not occur.
If new homes are added, she said, it might trigger more in-depth environmental documentation, requiring additional time and money.
All residents will pay an assessment even if their wells are functioning properly, she said.
The $100 to $150 monthly price is not much more costly than what residents are now paying for electricity to run their wells.
"I probably spend a third or half of that for the pump on my well, and then I have the whole issue of having to replace the pump for $1,000 to $2,000 every four or five years," said Vernon Crowder, chairman of the Dry Creek Rural Water Association. "And then there is the whole question of reliability."
Getting water piped to the neighborhood as soon as possible is the top priority, Crowder said.
It's also important because home values remain threatened by the lack of water.
"With every sale out there, the question is about the water supply," he said. "I can't put a percentage out there, but if we weren't already working on this pipe, there are some homes out there that would not have already sold … the key is it takes the question mark away."
Gary Serrato, Fresno Irrigation District general manager, said his agency wants to help the neighborhood, which is north and east of the district's boundaries.
"The less they [residents] have to pump, the better off the entire community is, including FID," Serrato said. "It makes our ground-water tables more sustainable."
But, he said, the report underestimated costs to make water available over the long term, and may mean residents have to pay more.
And, the agencies need to work out who can best serve the neighborhood despite boundary issues.
The neighborhood is outside the Clovis sphere of influence, the logical expansion for the city's future growth. And if Fresno's water plant is chosen as the location for piping water to the neighborhood, another turf conflict could occur.
In negotiations over future city borders with Fresno County and Clovis, the city of Fresno pledged it would not develop east of Willow Avenue. The neighborhood's western edge is about 2 miles east of Willow.
"There are just a lot of jurisdictional boundary issues that need to be taken care of," said Lon Martin, Fresno's water system manager. "We are more than willing to treat the water, but you have to provide the entitlement [to the water] and infrastructure."
But efforts to assist the neighborhood are groundbreaking, Martin said.
"This is going to force the city [of Fresno], the county, Clovis and FID to put our heads together and resolve this one," he said.