The Turlock Irrigation District board of directors will consider at its Tuesday meeting an increase to the volumetric water rate, which would be the first such increase in a decade.
TID would restructure its water-rate tier system, in accordance with a study provided by NewGen Strategies and Solutions, a consulting firm headquartered in Texas.
Board newcomer Becky Hackler Arellano, who hadn’t yet won her Division 4 seat when this issue was last addressed by the board on Nov. 5, said she supports the increases “for the good of future generations.”
“Nobody likes a rate increase, but in order to maintain and sustain for the next generations, we’ve got to start with our operation and maintenance projects,” said Arellano. “The district has been able to sustain itself for 100 years, and we want to make sure we can sustain for the next 100 years. And that requires money.”
The current normal-year fixed fee is $60 an acre ($68 in dry years), while Tier 1 is $2 per acre, Tier 2 is $3, Tier 3 is $15 and Tier 4 is $20. Under the new guidelines, there would be no changes to the normal-year and dry-year prices during 2025-27, while tiers 1-3 (up to available water) would be $2.70 in 2025, $3.23 in 2026, and $3.83 in 2027. Tier 4 (over available water) would be $20 in each of those years.
NewGen used a 40-acre parcel as an example to show what the impacts would be on customers.
A small irrigator who uses only 18 inches of water would see an increase of less than 2 percent during the three years. An irrigator who uses 33 inches of water would see an increase of less than 2 percent the first year and increases of 2.2 and 2.4 percent the following two years. A large irrigator who uses 72 inches of water would see a 5.5 percent increase in the first year, followed by increases of right around two percent in 2026 and 2027.
Don Pedro Reservoir elevation, which has a maximum capacity of about 830 feet (about 802 feet in the winter), currently sits at just over 774 feet, with a storage of 1,389,696 acre feet of water, according to statistics provided by TID.
The Tuolumne River Watershed snowpack is 11.53 inches, which is 92 percent average to date. The watershed precipitation figures is 9.86 inches this water year — which began on Oct. 1 — and that’s 72.4 percent of average today. Local precipitation is 3.7 inches, which is about 55 percent over average to date.
“We’re a little below average, but still fairly early in the water year,” said Brandon McMillan, communications specialist for TID. “From this point on, it can obviously shift. It could be dry going forward, and then these numbers would be not so great. But it could be wet moving forward, and change the outlook for the entire season
“But it’s early January and there’s still lot of precipitation to come. Historically, December, January, February, and March is when the majority of that precipitation falls. So, we’ve still got the historically wetter months to come.”
Tuesday’s TID meeting will be held at 9 a.m. in the TID board room, 333 E. Canal Dr.
