Water Reliability

Zone 7 imports about 80 percent of its water, on average, from the State Water Project, traveling from Oroville Dam through the South Bay Aqueduct. That is a single corridor exposed to earthquake, drought, and climate volatility. The 2024 collapse of the Los Vaqueros Reservoir expansion was a real setback. Reliability now depends on diversification.

A diversified portfolio

No water agency should depend on a single conveyance for that large a share of its supply. Stronger groundwater banking, modernized stormwater capture, support for Northern California storage projects like Sites Reservoir, and a clear-eyed evaluation of regional desalination and potable reuse all belong in the mix.

Use the basin we have

The Livermore Valley Groundwater Basin provides roughly 10 to 20 percent of annual supply depending on year type, and Zone 7 holds roughly 198,000 acre-feet banked in Kern County as a reserve. As PFAS treatment expands and well capacity comes back online, the basin can carry more of the load and reduce dependence on a fragile import corridor.

Capture what falls here

Zone 7's flood-control channels and the Chain of Lakes already serve a dual purpose: managing storm flows and recharging the basin. Maximize that. Every acre-foot we capture in a wet year is an acre-foot we do not need to import in a dry one.

Reliability for the whole service area

Reliability means different things to different customers, and Zone 7 serves all of them. About 265,000 Tri-Valley residents rely on Zone 7's treated water through retailers in Pleasanton, Dublin, Livermore, and DSRSD. Roughly 3,400 acres of South Livermore Valley vineyards rely on Zone 7's untreated water for irrigation. Tri-Valley employers rely on predictable service when they evaluate expansion. A reliability strategy serves all three: predictable rates for households, a dry-year allocation framework that gives ag a clear answer, and continued capacity so new connections are not paused during drought.

Zone 7 is also the exclusive Groundwater Sustainability Agency for the Livermore Valley Groundwater Basin. The Salt Management Plan and the Alternative Groundwater Sustainability Plan are how the board protects basin water quality for wells and recharge. Those plans deserve the same public milestones and audit trails as any capital project.

Learn from peer water agencies

Zone 7 is not the only special district solving these problems. Agencies across Northern California — from the Sierra foothills to the Sacramento Valley — manage groundwater basins, balance supply portfolios, and wrestle with the same infrastructure-versus-import tradeoffs. The next board should actively benchmark Zone 7's reliability strategy against peer water agencies, share operational lessons, and build relationships that strengthen the region's collective water security.

The Delta Conveyance decision

The largest single reliability question in front of the board is how to steward Zone 7's estimated $443 million share of the Delta Conveyance Project, based on DWR's 2023 cost estimate and Zone 7's 2.2 percent participation level. This is a series of funding votes paid through water rates, not a single commitment. The board has already approved up to $7.55 million in planning costs across actions in 2020 and 2022, and in June 2025 executed an amendment for up to $6.6 million in pre-construction work for calendar years 2026 and 2027. DWR anticipates an updated cost estimate and financing plan before the participating agencies' next major decision in 2027. The seismic case for protecting our import supply is real, and so are the freshwater, ecological, and cost questions raised by communities downstream of the proposed intakes. Each vote deserves its own analysis. Read my full position on the Delta Conveyance Project →