Tiny Sacramento water district ‘flooded with public safety dangers,’ grand jury says
An obscure north Sacramento water district has been accused by a grand jury of neglecting millions of dollars in overdue repairs, failing to inform customers quickly about chemical contamination, operating largely in secret and even ignoring a directive by the county’s top prosecutor on the proper procedures for awarding an engineering contract.
Del Paso Manor Water District is the subject of a blistering report this week by the Sacramento County Grand Jury, which said the tiny agency is “flooded with public safety dangers.”
The grand jury’s report illustrates a problem rampant in California. The state has hundreds of poorly run small water districts that lack the staffing and financial wherewithal to operate safely.
The issue is particularly evident in many rural areas, where water supplies are often tainted with chemicals and hundreds of thousands of Californians don’t have access to clean drinking water. State officials have been trying to pressure many of these troubled districts to merge or consolidate with healthier agencies, with limited success.
Del Paso serves 1,900 mostly residential customers in a one-square-mile territory bounded by Watt, Marconi, Eastern and Maryal avenues. It gets its supply entirely from groundwater.
Founded in 1955, the district is beset with “systemic failures,” including the resignation of four general managers in the past two years and the recent resignation of more than half of its Board of Directors, according to the grand jury report.
The grand jury said the district routinely violates the Brown Act, a state law that requires government agencies to operate transparently. Among other things, Del Paso fails to provide the public with adequate board-meeting agendas and other materials, the report said.
“These violations have helped conceal the fact that the Board of Directors has abdicated its mission to ensure safe drinking water and maintain a reliable water supply,” the report said.
In a statement posted on its website, the district said “we take very seriously the findings and recommendations made by the rand Jury. The District has a new Board of Directors and a new General Manager and we will address these findings and recommendations with full transparency and integrity. This new team is and will continue to comply with the Brown Act and appropriate governance.”
Ryan Saunders, president of the Del Paso board, said the new general manager started working at the district in late October. Saunders declined to comment further.
In one of its most troubling findings, the grand jury said the district has failed to act on a 12-year-old planning document that said Del Paso is relying on an aging set of wells, pipes and other equipment that has left the district in a precarious spot.
“Consumers may be unaware that their drinking water is being supplied almost entirely by just two of the District’s eight wells and is delivered through a pipeline structure which is more than 60 years-old,” the report said.
A recent in-house report cited by the grand jury says the district needs to spend $35 million to upgrade its infrastructure; the expense could overwhelm the tiny district’s finances and create an enormous burden for customers.
“Costs will not be spread out among tens of thousands of residents; it will fall to just 1,900 ratepayers,” the grand jury said. “Assuming the cost is distributed evenly among the ratepayers, the projected $35 million to replace the aging pipe system and install new equipment and wells could cost individual ratepayers an estimated $18,400.”
District delayed telling customers about problems
The grand jury said Del Paso dragged its feet on notifying customers and complying with a state directive after tetrachloroethylene, a dangerous chemical also known as PCE, was discovered in one of its wells in 2016.
The State Water Resources Control Board ordered the district to start testing the well every three months; the district didn’t comply for three years. And it wasn’t until another year later, in July 2020, that the district finally notified customers about the contamination. They should have been told within 30 days.
PCE, widely used in dry cleaning and various industrial settings, has been linked to bladder cancer, kidney problems and other medical issues, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
The grand jury said the district’s penchant for secrecy extended to its dealings with the Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office.
In October 2020, the board awarded a $57,000 engineering contract while refusing to let the public see copies of the bids. After a resident complained to the DA’s Office, the office ordered Del Paso’s board to vote again on the contract in public and “cure this violation” of the Brown Act.
Despite telling the DA that it would correct the violation, the board awarded the contract without taking a public re-vote, according to the grand jury.
This story was originally published November 11, 2021 at 12:15 PM.