There is a Special Meeting of the City Council tomorrow evening at City Hall, and it deals with one agenda item only (link). The Agenda Report goes by this rather ominous sounding title:
As you can imagine, this leads to a quite long and somewhat detailed report dealing with the issue of Sierra Madre's at risk water conservation efforts. According to the State of California, these have not been all they could be, and Sierra Madre has failed to reach its mandated goals. There could be consequences, and should things not improve quickly these would almost certainly be in the form of some pretty draconian fines.
Here is how all of that is initially detailed in the report:
So why has the City of Sierra Madre failed to reach its conservation goals? Is it solely because the residents have not conserved water in the amounts that they should have? Have people been ignoring the things that they need to do in order to help the city avoid being heavily fined by the state for using too much water? Is this really a city of scofflaws?
The answer to that question is not clearly determined in this Agenda Report. But here is one distinct possibility for the City's failure:
It would seem to me that before the blame is laid exclusively at the feet of Sierra Madre's residents, and certainly before they are forced to endure any additional fines and penalties designed to correct their behavior, shouldn't it be determined exactly how big a factor all of the water system leaks have played in this matter?
So here is the question that needs to be answered. Exactly what percentage of Sierra Madre's failed water reduction number was caused by all of those water main and pipe leaks? And if the apparently systemic failure of this city's water infrastructure were to be somehow factored out, would the results show that Sierra Madre's residents actually have done what they were asked to do? Cut their water usage in the amounts required?
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