The city of Napa is set to consider an increase to water rates for the first time in two years to cover the increasing costs of providing service.
The Napa City Council will hold a hearing Nov. 7 to adopt the new rates. If approved, they would be effective Jan. 1 and customers likely would see the impact on bills in March and April, said Joy Eldredge, deputy city utilities director.
Water customers in the city of Napa will likely pay higher rates starting in 2024.
The city’s utilities department laid out the proposed increases – the first in three years – in a Tuesday presentation to the Napa City Council. Joy Eldredge, the city utilities director, made the case for rate hikes, stating that Napa’s water division will face an annual $6.8 million budget deficit if rates aren’t adjusted.
Napa County civic leaders want to keep exploring whether the dozens of local agencies that deliver water to tens of thousands of residents and businesses should be working together more closely.
County agencies involved with water range from the city of Napa serving 80,000 residents to rural districts serving a few hundred customers. They have various water sources and make their own water decisions.
Renowned winemaker Jayson Woodbridge is suing Napa County for well policies allegedly restricting access to groundwater at four of his vineyards.
The vineyards, Double Vee Properties LLC, Caldera Ranch LLC, Hundred Acre LLC and Hundred Acre Wine Group Inc., told the US District Court for the Northern District of California on Tuesday that Napa County violated their rights under the Fifth Amendment, which prohibits the taking of private property without due process.
Napa Valley Country Club golf course is lush and green, thanks to the purple pipe.
A two-year drought is helping to boost Napa County’s recycled water use to record levels. The Napa Sanitation District wastewater treatment plant provides enough non-potable irrigation water annually to fill St. Helena’s Bell Canyon reservoir and more.
Napa Valley Country Club in rural Coombsville started piping water from the plant six miles away in late 2015. That allows it to depend less on a well in an area where groundwater levels have long been a concern.
Irrigation curbs, car washing restrictions and the shutoff of fountains may return in the city of Napa amid shrinking water supplies on the tail of a dry California winter.
Tuesday night, the City Council is scheduled to vote on a “moderate water shortage” declaration intended to cut consumption by 15%. Approval would mark the return of water-use restrictions last rolled out in the mid-2010s when a six-year drought led California to mandate across-the-board cutbacks statewide.
The Bay Area’s hopes for weekend rains to help snuff the Glass Fire and dampen the parched hills seem to be evaporating.
The Water News Network is San Diego County’s source for water news and information.
