Connick Creek Customers May Have Their Water Disconnected Due to Overage Charges In a Complicated Agreement With the GSD

Decades old agreements are becoming a problem for the Garberville Sanitary District (GSD) and some of its customers. At the March 22nd GSD board meeting, issues with the Connick Creek Subdivision were discussed by the GSD General Manager, Ralph Emerson, and the GSD board members.

Water districts have district boundaries or place of use (POU) restrictions for where water obtained by the district is allowed to be distributed to. Those boundaries are muddled for GSD.

In 2004, the GSD purchased the Garberville Water Company GWC) from the Hurlbutt family, consolidating the two entities under the GSD. According to the GSD documents, “Unbeknownst to GSD at the time of purchase, the GWC had extended service to a number of properties that were outside of GWC’s POU [Place of Use] by setting the meter inside the POU and then allowing the customer to extend a private waterline from the meter to their property.”

However, an email submitted to the board by former Southern Humboldt resident, Ed Voice, alleges that the GSD not only knew about the GWC’s service to parcels outside of the POU, but was also one of those customers outside the GWC’s POU. “However, is it not also true and a fact that GSD was purchasing water from GWC, that was metered inside the GWC Place of Use (POU) and then piped outside the GWC POU across the river to the GSD WWTP [Wastewater Treatment Plant] for a very long time? And in 1997, GSD made an agreement (not GWC) with the property owners at the new Connick Creek subdivision to sell and provide that same water it purchased from the GWC to Connick Creek, without a public drinking water permit, license, approved or authorized by Humboldt LAFCo?” he wrote.

Regardless of who made the original agreement with the Connick Creek subdivision, the GSD is now contractually obligated to provide service to properties with already existing service. Two such properties are the Connick Creek subdivision and the Southern Humboldt Community Park (SHCP).

According to agenda documents, the Connick Creek subdivision entered into an agreement with the GWC in 1997 to provide water to an entity titled the Connick Creek Association. The agreement stated that the GWC placed a master meter inside the POU. From the master meter the Connick Creek Association was responsible for the construction and maintenance of the water lines to nine designated parcels within the subdivision that were outside the boundaries of the GSW POU.

In the 2010 revised agreement, the GSD agreed to install individual water meters for any of the nine parcels that were currently using district water, while the Connick Creek Association agreed to the continued maintenance and responsibility of all lines on the subdivision side of the master meter.

The agreement also gave the GSD the authority to shut water off to the individual meters or to the master meter in the event of a leak to stop the leak from draining the district’s water reserves. On February 28th of this year, the GSD sent notices to the GSD customers of the Connick Creek subdivision. The letter states that water has had to be shut off to the subdivision “again” due to a water leak.

The subdivision water usage is recorded both by the master meter, recording the total amount of water the Connick Creek Association is responsible for, and the individual water meters on each parcel, indicating how much of the water to the subdivision was used by each parcel. However, there have been instances when the sum total of the individual meters is less than the master meter, indicating a leak or diversion occurring between the master meter and the individual parcel meters.

In the agreement between the Connick Creek Association and the GSD, the association is responsible for any discrepancies. Connick Creek resident, Young Jacobsen, has historically paid any discrepancies, however, Jacobsen no longer lives in the area. According to the letter sent by Emerson, Jacobsen says that he will not continue to pay the difference.

Legally, the matter falls back to the Connick Creek Association; how they designate who pays the overage between the individual meters and the master meters is up to them. However, if not paid, the water to the entire subdivision is in danger of being turned off. At the board meeting, Emerson stated that the subdivision’s water service would be shut off the following day if the remaining bill had not been paid.

Aside from the issue of the metered water being paid for, there’s concern that there may be water loss through a leak or water diversion. If the water is being diverted to parcels other than the nine in the agreement, or if that water is being used for cannabis cultivation without an ag water meter, the district’s other customers may suffer, especially in drought years.

The district has regulations on how much water it is allowed to divert from the Eel River, both in total volume per year, and volume based on water flow levels. With the Eel River at summer-time lows as winter gives way to spring, talks of water rationing and conservation are already being discussed by the GSD.

When asked by public commenter, Kristen Vogel, why the district assumes the discrepancy is due to a leak versus water diversion, Emerson said, “We don’t know any of that.”

According to Jenni Short, GSD consultant, the district has no authority over the water line beyond the master meter. The district, Short says, is allowed to walk the water line, but has no authority or responsibility over or for the water line on the Connick Creek side of the master meter.

In a follow up interview with Emerson, he told us that in years past the discrepancies between the master meter and the sum total of the individual meters ranged from 3-10 units. Now he says, those discrepancies are two to ten times higher, resulting in discrepancies between 20-100 units; that equates to a 14,960-gallon to 74,800-gallon differences between the master meter readings and the water being metered on the individual parcel meters.

Emerson said the GSD staff has walked the water line and cannot find any obvious diversions or leaks. At this point, he says that the GSD does not have the authority to investigate the privately owned water line any further than they have. Emerson has contacted regulatory agencies that do have jurisdiction, to seek advice and assistance for this issue.

In the meantime, Emerson hopes that the overage charges the association has to pay will encourage the property owners to discover where the discrepancy is occurring and fix it. Until that point, the Connick Creek Association is on the line financially for the water delivered through the master meter. As of the meeting on Tuesday, the subdivision was scheduled to have their water service shut-off until the outstanding balance has been paid. “It’s no difference than a customer within the district boundaries, if they don’t pay for the water used, we’re going to turn the water off for all of them,” he said.

With the continuance of drought conditions, water theft is an ongoing issue for the district. Emerson also said that if the district discovers that water is being diverted to parcels not included in the GSD agreement with the Connick Creek Association, the district will take action. “If anyone is using the water, for whatever reason, outside [the] …Connick Creek service area, we will turn them in.”

In his letter to the board, Ed Voice wrote, “The answer to your problem is to annex all Outside Agency Service(s) (OAS) and include them into the district jurisdictional boundary.”

In our follow-up interview, Emerson said that including both the Connick Creek subdivision and the SHCP into the districts POU would require significant amounts of time and money, something he is not opposed to in the future. However, Emerson said that the district would not add additional customers to the district if the district’s current water diversion was not able to sustain and provide a backup supply to the existing GSD customers – an ongoing concern with low water flow levels.

If the GSD annexed the outside areas into the district’s POU, service would then be available to not only the nine parcels outlined in the agreement with the Connick Creek Association, but any property in the areas within the expanded POU, willing and able to pay to have water and sewage services connected.

For now, the GSD and the Connick Creek Association are bound by the contractual agreement revised in 2010. Emerson is hoping, with the help of regulatory agencies, the district and the Connick Creek Association can revise their contract to address the issues surrounding the water usage discrepancies. Until then, the contract clearly states that the Connick Creek Association is the responsible party, both for the financial cost of any water leaks or diversion, and the resolution of said issues.

The issues with the agreement with the Connick Creek Association may foretell future issues with SHCP. The SHCP had two metered connections to the GWC prior to 1994 but had opted to turn the service off to the property in 2009 due to a water leak with the stipulation that water service would be returned to the parcels when the new waterline was constructed from the Surface Water Treatment Plant. However, as of now, the SHCP remains outside of the districts POU.
At the time of publication, we we’re unable to determine if the water has been shut off to the Connick Creek residents, if the outstanding balance was paid, or if a payment arrangement had been made.

The next GSD board meeting is scheduled for April 26th at 5 p.m. at 919 Redwood Dr., Garberville. (The south end of Ray’s Market parking lot.)