Board Sets Trigger for Rationing

The IPUD Board of Directors on August 25 determined that rationing will come into effect automatically should the amount of water in our tanks fall below 50% of total storage capacity, based on a 7-day running average. Beginning Sept. 1, we will post on our website (invernesspud.org) the daily level and the 7-day running average percentage. We’re at work on getting a sign installed downtown that will also convey this information.

Good News on Increasing Our Water Supply  

We’ve been pursuing two initiatives to increase our water supply immediately. The first has already paid off, giving us an additional 5,000-7,000 gallons of water a day (about a 10% increase in total availability). This was accomplished by eliminating a persistent leak in our old 60,000-gallon wooden tank at the Tenney tank site; this is the tank that will soon be replaced. We brought in a professional tank repair team that located and plugged the elusive leak.

We are also activating a never-used well in Third Valley that is now functional and pumping water in test mode – perhaps as much as 6,000-7,000 gallons per day. If lab tests of samples show the water is usable, we’ll file for permits from State Water Board to start putting the water into the System. The regulators have hinted that due to the drought emergency we can expect expedited processing for an operating license. Fingers crossed!

Planning for Resiliency from Future Droughts

We are in early talks with Marin Municipal Water District about their plans for buying available water from agricultural water rights holders in the Sacramento Delta and bringing the water into Marin by way of a pipe suspended permanently underneath the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge. We have proposed that a tiny fraction of that water be reserved for IPUD as an emergency fallback supply during any future severe drought. Getting the water to us physically would be challenging, involving transfers of water among several water agencies. What we can report at this moment is that MMWD (which now dubs itself “Marin Water”) has been receptive to our overture and we are pursuing the matter.     

Attention E-billing customers

Due to a miscommunication with our service bureau, yesterday’s IPUD water bills were not e-mailed until this morning. If you receive your bills by e-mail, please note that the sender address has changed to “dbs@diversifiedtechnology.com.” If you don’t see your August IPUD water bill in your In box, please check your Spam or Junk mail folder.