It will start to flow in Stockton homes next week for the first time
Deputy Director Bob Granberg explains how the membrane filters work Wednesday at the Stockton Municipal Water District's new Delta water treatment plant. The largest public works project in Stockon's history goes online next week.CLIFFORD OTO/The Record
STOCKTON - It is a strange fact that people as far away as San Diego drink water from the Delta, while Stockton residents who live on its banks have not had a sip in the city's 162 years.
That irony will end next week with the click of a mouse as the largest public works project in Stockton's history goes online.
Thousands of residents throughout north Stockton will turn on the tap one afternoon, and Delta water will come splashing out.
Hurdles cleared
The Delta Water Supply Project was relatively noncontroversial, though some observers have challenged it over the years:
• Slow-growth advocates were concerned the project would facilitate growth north of Eight Mile Road — more sprawl for Stockton. But that growth is, for now at least, nonexistent.
• Ed Steffani, a former general manager of the Stockton East Water District, long argued that Stockton does not need the water — especially now that it has been receiving larger allocations in recent years from the district's federal contracts on the Stanislaus River. Historically, however, that water has not been consistently provided, and supporters say Stockton needs a new, more secure and independent source of water.
• Agricultural districts in the south San Joaquin Valley tried to block the Stockton project in 2006, arguing that yet another straw in the Delta could decrease the amount of water that can be exported to meet their needs or that could be stored in upstream reservoirs. But the State Water Resources Control Board said those fears were unfounded. The Stockton project could lead to a reduction in water exports of 6,000 to 10,000 acre-feet per year, the board said, a range that pales in comparison to the millions of acre-feet of water that are exported each year from the Delta to farms and cities up and down California.
They are not likely to notice any difference, officials say. But for anyone familiar with this region's longtime struggle to secure its future water supply against sometimes overwhelming political powers, that water will taste sweet indeed.
"People may not see it today, but they'll see it in the long run. Their children and their grandchildren will benefit from it," said Bob Granberg, deputy director of the city's Municipal Utilities Department.
For more than a century, Stockton depended entirely upon water pumped out of the ground. But eventually, that supply began to dwindle. The city looked toward the Sierra Nevada foothills, tapping the Calaveras River in 1977 and later the Stanislaus River. Still, the groundwater sank, threatening to ruin the quality and quantity of the city's subterranean "savings account."
Meanwhile, much of the region's surface water was already being exported to the Bay Area or Southern California. The state directed San Joaquin County to slake its growing thirst from the American River to the north, but the infrastructure needed to send that water here was never finished.
The Delta and its 1,000 miles of waterways were an obvious potential new source of water, one which the city began examining 40 years ago.
But nothing happens quickly in the world of water.
Stockton filed an application seeking to divert water from the San Joaquin River at Empire Tract in 1996; the new water treatment plant just north of Eight Mile Road was finally dedicated Wednesday.
In a matter of days, Stockton will be drinking the same water as communities from the north Bay Area to the South Coast. That is, it will finally be drinking its own water.
"This truly is historic. Not only does it help secure our future in terms of water, but it also is a great economic stimulus to our city and this area," Stockton Mayor Ann Johnston said.
The project was paid for mostly through a substantial increase in residential water rates and new development fees. The Municipal Utilities Department is separate from the city's general fund, which is at the heart of Stockton's fiscal crisis.
The city is already conducting tests, running water through the intake pump at the west end of Eight Mile Road. The next step is to shoot water up the 12-mile pipe toward the treatment plant on Lower Sacramento Road, flushing out the pipe and preparing for the first deliveries to homes, perhaps late next week.
With the click of a mouse on a technician's computer, the plant will begin providing up to 30 million gallons of water per day - enough to satisfy one-third of the city's annual demand. Put in more visual terms, the new source of water is enough to submerge the entire University of the Pacific campus in 4 feet of water within a week.
Only Stockton residents who live roughly north of March Lane will get the Delta water. Everyone else will continue to receive Calaveras and Stanislaus river water from the Stockton East Water District, which has its own treatment plant east of town.
Not that the change will make any noticeable difference. Yes, this is the sometimes smelly Delta we are talking about, but city officials say the new plant should remove any strange tastes or odors from the water.
"I think people will find it very pleasing, actually," Granberg said.
One of the reasons for the Delta's ongoing decline is excessive water diversions. Under the terms of its permit, Stockton can only pump out of the Delta the same amount of water as it puts into the city's wastewater treatment plant, several miles to the south. In that sense, this has been described as a water recycling project, even though residents are not drinking literally their own treated wastewater.
What's more, the city is restricted from pumping during the springtime to protect tiny Delta smelt larvae. But it has purchased Mokelumne River water from the Woodbridge Irrigation District to help make up the difference, and some of that water has already been sent out to north Stockton homes - another first in the city's water history.
This is by no means the last time Stockton will need to bolster its water supply. The new facility will reverse only a portion of the region's overreliance on groundwater, and future expansion of the plant will be needed once growth inevitably resumes, the city says.
And there's a wild card: the proposed peripheral canal or tunnel, which would siphon water around the Delta and potentially harm water quality. With its own straw now in the Delta, Stockton in essence has a $220 million stake in the outcome of that incredibly complex and contentious state water policy debate.
Wednesday's ceremony at the new treatment plant, however, was celebratory, not cautionary.
"I think this is a very significant investment," Mel Lytle, director of Municipal Utilities, told the crowd. "I think we have a lot of great things to look forward to."
Contact reporter Alex Breitler at (209) 546-8295 or abreitler@recordnet.com. Visit his blog at recordnet.com/breitlerblog.
