By Kate Snyder
Earlier this year, a group of Silicon Valley billionaires announced their intention to transform the landscape of Solano County, on the edge of the Bay Area, into a 21st-century utopia. Named “California Forever,” the initiative aims to take 55,000 acres of agricultural land and with a focus on innovation, sustainability and community, turn a portion of the county into a modern city. Among the challenges the project faces, experts believe that one in particular would be an especially uphill climb in California’s current shape: water supply.
Located approximately 45 miles northeast of San Francisco and 45 miles southwest of Sacramento, Solano County has a population of roughly 430,000. According to its website, the county covers 909.4 square miles, including 675.4 square miles of rural land area and 84.2 square miles of water area. In addition to unincorporated areas, Solano County serves seven jurisdictions: Benicia, Dixon, Fairfield, Rio Vista, Suisun City, Vacaville and Vallejo. Throughout the county, major sources of water for residents, businesses and agricultural land include groundwater, Lake Berryessa in Napa County, the California State Water Project and creeks or rivers that run across or adjacent to local properties.
On California Forever’s website, leadership acknowledges the importance of water supply for any new development. The team states on the “Frequently Asked Questions” page that they hope to contribute toward water supply and quality enhancements that benefit Solano County, including upgrading the supply drawn from the North Bay Aqueduct just north of the project area. Specific plans for contributing to the water supply or where the water to support the development might come from were not detailed.
Representatives of California Forever did not respond to messages seeking comment.
“There is no path to building a new town without securing adequate water supplies,” the project website states. “We anticipate that water for an approved project would consist of multiple sources that we have obtained or that will be more fully developed.”
Without knowing exactly what the plans are for California Forever, it’s hard to say how much water the project would hypothetically need to support its users. Cary Keaton, general manager of the Solano Irrigation District, an independent agency and water service provider, noted that Suisun City has a population of about 30,000, which is far less than the potential 100,000 residential population of California Forever, and uses approximately 6,000 acre feet of water per year. An acre foot is a metric used in water planning that is determined by the amount of water required to cover a football field one foot deep.
Though Keaton, who is not affiliated with California Forever, is sure that the organization’s leadership is exploring every option for water supply, he acknowledged the challenges they face if the proposal were to move forward.
“Having a water supply is key to development….The goal is to make sure no individual homeowner runs out of water,” he said. “It’s really hard to know what their plan is.”
In 2014, the state of California passed a law, called the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, that requires local agencies to form groundwater sustainability agencies for high and medium priority basins. While the boundaries of the California Forever proposal haven’t been made clear, based on a map from the state, half of the project could fall under a high-priority basin and be subjected to this law, which would bring another challenge that the development team would have to confront.
Throughout the state, agriculture uses a majority of the developed water supply, with estimations hitting as high as 80 percent. Depending on the type of rights obtained, agricultural or urban users could see restrictions imposed during periods of drought, though often urban water could be called more stable due to coming from a variety of sources.
Another source of water, Lake Berryessa, has been fairly reliable for Solano County, but Keaton said the proposed project isn’t in a place where it could use the lake as a water source without finding a way to transport it to the planned development. Located in Napa County, Lake Berryessa stores 1.6 million acre feet of water at capacity and is one of the largest bodies of freshwater in California, according to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. It supplies water for Vacaville, Suisun City, Vallejo and Fairfield. Except for Vallejo, those cities are further north and closer to the lake than the site for the California Forever project, which is situated south of Travis Air Force Base.
On the other hand, Keaton said the California Forever project could have an advantage as a new city. Water supply agreements are generally drawn up on a traditional and historical basis. Every city and jurisdiction is different – for example, San Jose gets split among multiple water districts, which might include different sources than the San Francisco peninsula, and so on across the Bay Area. As a new city, California Forever wouldn’t have to deal with a web of legacy water deals from a slew of different agencies, and the developers could potentially make their own agreements.
“One good thing about this organization starting their own city is you don’t have to worry about history,” he said. “If you’re trying to develop, you’re kind of herding cats trying to get approvals from all these agencies.”
Others are less optimistic. Chris Lee, general manager at the Solano County Water Agency, a wholesale water supply agency that provides untreated water to cities and agricultural districts in Solano County, doesn’t believe that the California Forever proposal, as the supply stands right now, is viable.
“I don’t think there’s enough water to support a city of that size,” Lee said.
The project would likely need more than just groundwater to support itself. Only two cities in Solano County – Dixon and Rio Vista – rely solely on groundwater sources, Lee said, but the challenge there is that both have populations of less than 20,000 people, which is significantly fewer users than what California Forever has planned.
There are possible but difficult-to-obtain resources outside of groundwater. Lee’s agency receives water from two main sources – the State Water Project and the North Bay Aqueduct, which is part of the SWP and serves Napa County as well. The SWP, according to the California Department of Water Resources, is a multi-purpose water storage and delivery system that delivers clean water to 27 million residents, 750,000 acres of farmland and businesses throughout the state. There’s a set amount of water allocated each year from the SWP, Lee said, and for a new city or agency to be added to the roster, someone else would have to give up some of their allocation.
Such an agreement is possible, Lee said, but in his opinion unlikely. Particularly because the amount of water supplied by the SWP depends on the year’s rainfall and snowpack, and some years there might not be enough for even SWP members to receive their full allocation. And while at times the SWP has been in excess of its allocation agreements, Lee wouldn’t count on extra water from the SWP as a regular occurrence.
“The last time it happened was 17 years ago,” he said.
Since the announcement of the California Forever proposal, reactions to the project have been mixed, with responses ranging from excitement to skepticism that the project can deliver what it promises. And the project already has its share of challenges – the land is already zoned for agriculture, and Solano County’s Orderly Growth Measure means that a change of the zoning that would allow the project to move forward would have to be approved at the ballot box by the county’s voters.
But when it comes to water, there is no easy solution. Industry reports show that the California Forever group is also possibly eyeing the Sacramento River as a potential water source. The Solano Project, an initiative designed to irrigate approximately 96,000 acres of land with water from Putah Creek, is another program that has served the principal cities of Solano County. How the development process ultimately plays out, though, and exactly where the project’s water supply will come from will take much more time to determine.
“They have a whole lot of hurdles,” Lee said, “and a whole lot of people to talk to before they move further.”
