Mark Dolson
No Major New Developments
The San Lorenzo Valley Water District (SLVWD) Board has met only once (March 16th) since my last report, and the meeting itself was relatively uneventful. It’s worth noting, though, that this was the first Board meeting since the termination of the State’s Covid emergency declaration. Consequently, this was the Board’s first meeting in the District’s new hybrid meeting space at 12788 Highway 9, Boulder Creek. This is a recently remodeled facility designed to simultaneously support both in-person and remote Zoom attendance – suffice it to say that the audio set-up still has some significant problems to resolve, and people may be well advised to attend in person until all the bugs are worked out.
The Board unanimously approved an expenditure of $31,970 for work related to inventory and clearing of hazardous trees along the District’s Peavine raw water pipeline. The Board also unanimously approved and accepted the 2023 update for the San Lorenzo River and North Coast Watersheds Sanitary Survey submitted to the State Water Resources Control Board Division of Drinking Water in March 2023. Updates are required every five years, and SLVWD partners with the City of Santa Cruz for this effort.
One other recent development that is relevant to our community (but which has not been discussed by the Board) is that the State Water Resources Control Board has announced that it will be seeking to place the privately-owned Big Basin Water Company (serving roughly 500 customers northwest of Boulder Creek) in receivership. This could conceivably have implications for SLVWD in the years ahead because the Board voted unanimously in February to halt negotiations concerning a possible future consolidation; a change in Big Basin Water Company management could possibly one day reopen the door to these discussions.
The next regular Board of Directors meeting will be at 6:30 PM on April 6th.
