The Santa Cruz Local Agency Formation Commission voted yesterday by a narrow margin to kick a can of water issues farther down the road.
The Santa Cruz Local Agency Formation Commission voted yesterday by a narrow margin to kick a can of water issues farther down the road, the Sentinel reports.
LAFCO voted 4-3 Wednesday morning in favor of Commissioner John Leopold’s recommendation to to hold off on extending city water services to cover UCSC’s planned future growth. The Commission is now waiting to see what comes of the city’s negotiations with state and federal regulators to reduce the amount of the water it takes from rivers and streams.html. No one knows how long negotiations will take, but LAFCO could vote on this again in April.
Several groups had asked for the delay. The National Marine Fisheries Services, California Department of Fish and Game and the California Coastal Commission had all requested LAFCO deny the expansion, as reported Wednesday by the Santa Cruz Sentinel, until negotiations with regulators are finished.
Leopold also called for, and the commission tentatively approved, lowering by 15 percent the water use baseline above which the university would have to pay offset fees, from 206 million gallons per year to 176 million gallons per year. Under the conditions the university would be forced to pay $6,500 for each 85,000 gallons of water used over that amount, with the money going to off-campus water conservation measures—replacing lawns, installing more efficient appliances and the like.
Read more at the Santa Cruz Sentinel.
