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Bulletin
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SUMMARY OF
ORDINANCE 94
AN ORDINANCE OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS
OF THE TWENTYNINE PALMS WATER DISTRICT
AUTHORIZING AND SETTING A SPECIAL PARCEL TAX
FOR FIRE PROTECTION AND EMERGENCY MEDICAL SERVICES
AND SUBMITTING THE SPECIAL PARCEL TAX AND QUESTION
TO ESTABLISH THE DISTRICT'S APPROPRIATIONS LIMIT
TO THE QUALIFIED VOTERS OF THE DISTRICT The
Board of Directors of the Twentynine Palms Water District
(the "District") adopted
Ordinance No. 94 at a rescheduled meeting held on December
21, 2011. Ordinance No. 94 generally provides for
the following:
1. The Board of Directors calls and gives notice of
a special mailed ballot election to be held on April 17,
2012 in the District, County of San Bernardino.
2. The Board of Directors orders the Ballot
Ordinance attached to Ordinance 94 as Exhibit A to be
submitted to the qualified voters of the District at the
special mailed ballot election to be held on April 17,
2012, and requests the Registrar of Voters of San
Bernardino County (the "Registrar of Voters") to
conduct the election.
3. On the ballot to be submitted to the qualified
voters at the special mailed ballot election to be held on
April 17, 2012, in addition to any other matters required
by law, there shall be printed substantially the
following:
A. Shall the ordinance increasing the special parcel
tax for the Fire Department of the Twentynine Palms Water
District from $80.00 to $120.00 per unit commencing July
1, 2013, and providing for an annual increase to the tax
of $6.00 per unit per year for a ten-year period, be
adopted to provide a reliable revenue source for fire and
emergency medical services and to protect the public's
health, safety and general welfare?
B. Shall Twentynine Palms Water District increase
its California Constitution article XIII B appropriations
limit by the amount of revenues received in each fiscal
year from the special parcel tax for fire and emergency medical
services approved by the voters?
4. The specific purposes of the special parcel tax
and the increases thereof are to pay for fire and
emergency medical services provided by the District's Fire
Department, including, but not limited to, the salaries,
benefits and all other personnel related costs, equipment
and apparatus for full-time firefighting and
firefighting/emergency medical personnel as deemed
necessary by the Board of Directors or as required by law,
regulation or contractual obligation of the District, and
any incidental expenses incurred in the administration of
the tax, including, but not limited to, the costs of the
election, and the cost of collection. The proceeds
of the special parcel tax shall be used only for the
specific purposes identified herein. The proceeds of
the special parcel tax shall be deposited in a special
fund, to be created and maintained by the District.
5. If the ballot measure authorizing the increase to
the District's special parcel tax is approved by the
qualified voters of the District, the expenditures of the
special parcel tax shall be monitored by a volunteer
Oversight Committee (the "Committee") appointed
by the Board of Directors to ensure conformance with
Ordinance No. 94 and the Ballot Ordinance.
6. Pursuant to the requirements of Elections Code
section 4000 et seq., the Board of Directors requests the
Board of Supervisors of the County of San Bernardino to
conduct a special mailed ballot election for the proposed
ballot measures.
The above summary constitutes the major highlights of
Ordinance No. 94. A reading of the entire Ordinance
No. 94 may be necessary to obtain a full understanding of
Ordinance No. 94. Ordinance No. 94 was approved by
the following vote:
AYES: Directors
Bourikas, Chambers, Cisneros, Moore and Shinaver
NOES: None
ABSTAIN: None
ABSENT: None
A copy of the full text of Ordinance No. 94 is available
at the District Offices located at 72401 Hatch Road,
Twentynine Palms CA 92277 or by calling the District
Secretary at 760-367-7546.
Dated: December 29, 2011
TWENTYNINE PALMS WATER DISTRICT
By: /s/ Mike Wright, General Manager
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Press
Releases
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TPWD
Observes Water Awareness Month
05/01/11 -
Twentynine Palms
In coordination with the California Water Awareness Campaign, the Twentynine Palms Water District
will be observing the month of May 2011 as
"Water Awareness Month".
In preparation for this observance, the District worked to promote public awareness about the vital role of water and the importance of its conservation and protection.
Helpful tips
were included in each water bill and distributed to approximately
8,000 meter services throughout the previous year and a
brochure
(Adobe PDF) was made available at the District's customer service desk highlighting water conservation and protection ideas.
In addition, the District offered all 4th, 5th and
6th grade educators in Twentynine Palms the opportunity to have a representative provide a presentation to their students about their local water supply and the importance of water conservation and protection. As a result, the District
conducted 7 water education presentations. |
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Along with this program, the District also sponsored a poster contest which was open to all 4th,
5th and 6th grade students in the area.
The 1st Place winner received a $50 US Savings Bond and the 2nd and 3rd Place winners received a $25 US Savings Bond, all of which were kindly sponsored by the Morongo Basin Conservation Association.
Presentation of the awards was made at the
beginning of the District's Board of Directors
meeting held Wednesday, April 27th at the District offices.
Winners of the contest were from Oasis Elementary
school and are listed as follows:
1st - Cheryl, Mrs. Pacheco's 5th Grade Class
2nd - Neil, Mrs. Pacheco's 5th Grade Class
3rd - Sharon, Mrs. Pacheco's 5th Grade
Class
The winning entries can be viewed on the
District's website and will be displayed in the office lobby
beginning in May. |
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Media
Coverage
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Chief Touts
Measure to Boost
Fire Protection Tax
02/08/12 - The Desert Trail
By Kurt Schauppner
TWENTYNINE PALMS — Fire Chief Jim Thompson
recently used a group photo of Twentynine Palms
firefighters to describe the effect of failure of
a measure aimed at increasing property tax funding
for the Fire Department. "Take
that picture, tear it in half." he said,
addressing members of the Twentynine Palms Kiwanis
Club at their breakfast meeting on Tuesday, Feb.
7. Thompson will
spend the next few weeks visiting Twentynine Palms
service organizations in an effort to sell a plan
to increase the tax local property owners pay for
fire and medical emergency protection. That
tour will likely include a community meeting,
sometime in March. Measure
H, if approved in a special mail-in election in
the spring, would increase that tax from $80 to
$120 per unit, beginning on July 1, 2013. It
would also allow for a $6 annual tax increase for
10 years following 2013.
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Approval of Measure H would also see creation of a
five-member Volunteer Citizens Oversight Committee
to keep an eye on how the Fire Department spends
its extra income.
Ballots will be
mailed out to voters in the Twentynine Palms Water
District, which oversees operation of the Fire
Department, in mid-March. They are due back
at the Registrar of Voters office by Tuesday,
April 17. Speaking
of the effect of a defeat of Measure H, which
needs approval of 2/3 of votes cast, Thompson
implied one effect would be closure of the Lear
Avenue fire station, which serves Desert Heights,
Indian Cove and much of the western portion of
Twentynine Palms. "You
can make that assumption, the board has not made
decisions," he said. "The whole
community could see an increase to their property
insurance," he said. "You are
going to end up with inadequate response
times." He
noted that property tax revenues have not covered
expenses at the Fire Department. "This
year we are going to take $195,000 out of our fund
balance," he said. |
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TPWD Shows Off Treatment
Plant
08/09/06 - The Desert Trail
By Kelly O'Sullivan
TWENTYNINE PALMS - It rushes from the tap - clear and clean whenever we want
it - and that's all most of us care about when it comes
to water. Not Mike Wright. Twentynine Palms Water District's general manager is responsible for providing water on a daily basis to 17,000 thirsty residents in an 87-square-mile area that includes Twentynine Palms, Indian Cove and Desert Heights.
Wright and his staff also must look to the future to ensure that the water keeps flowing since the district gets its water from a finite source - four underground aquifers.
On Tuesday, Aug. 8, Wright showed off the district's pride and joy - the $4.2 million Fluoride Removal Plant at Utah Trail and Amboy Road.
The plant's mechanical parts were assembled by TPWD personnel under the guidance of its designer, Frederick Rubel of Tucson-based Rubel Engineering.
Had TPWD hired outside contractors for that work, the facility - the only one of its kind, which draws water officials from as far away as Egypt interested in building their own treatment plants - would have cost taxpayers
$7 million, Wright said. District officials did hire a contractor to lay the floors, put up the walls and roof the building, he said. The plant went into operation on March 12, 2003.
Through the plant, which can treat up to 3 million gallons of water per day from TPWD's Mesquite Springs aquifer, the district pumps
1 million gallons of water a day, five days a week, into its pipeline system.
Five million gallons a week may not sound like a big deal in a water system that delivers an average of 2.8 million gallons of water a day to customers - 5.08 million gallons a day in the peak summer months - until Wright tells you those 5 million gallons from the Mesquite Springs aquifer have allowed the district to dramatically offset growing demands on two of the district's other three aquifers.
Water levels in the district's Fortynine Palms Canyon aquifer were dropping at a rate of 6 to 10 feet a year and levels in its Eastern aquifer were falling 4 to 6 feet a year, Wright said. Today, they're dropping at a rate of 1 to 2 feet a year.
The Indian Cove aquifer continues to fall at a rate of
4 feet a year because the district doesn't pump water from the Mesquite Springs aquifer that far west in the system, Wright said. A reservoir project now under way is expected to lessen the demand on the Indian Cove aquifer by 50 percent by the end of 2007.
Taking out the fluoride Water in the Mesquite Springs aquifer has a naturally high fluoride content, so the district must remove the fluoride from that water before delivering it to customers. |
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The state currently allows most water districts a maximum of 2.0 milligrams of fluoride per liter but because of the high fluoride that naturally occurs in the water here, TPWD was granted a variance allowing
3.0 milligrams per liter.
Water from the Mesquite Springs aquifer comes out of the ground with between 5 and 7 milligrams of fluoride for liter and leaves the plant at less than 2.0 milligrams per liter.
When the plant is operating, 2,100 gallons of water a minute flow into the facility, pumped from a well just south of the building.
“Every drop of (that) water goes into the (pipeline) system,” Wright said.
The water level under the facility is at 58 feet below ground. The well is 1,050 feet deep and the water is pumped from 440 feet, Wright said.
Not all of the water pumped into the facility requires treatment, he noted.
Computers monitor the flow and water that doesn't require treatment - about 23 percent of that 2,100 gallons per minute - is diverted into a bypass pipe that runs into a 250,000-gallon reservoir just east of the building. From there it goes into the pipeline system, on its way to customers.
Treating the water from the Mesquite Springs aquifer is a four-step process. In a nutshell, the water flows through a series of pipes and into one of six huge blue treatment vessels. The water's pH level is decreased to 5.5, which allows for the removal of the fluoride. Once the fluoride's removed, the water's pH is readjusted to 8, then the treated water goes into the reservoir and into the pipeline system.
Once a week, TPWD takes one of its six treatment vessels offline to remove the fluoride built up in that vessel, a process called regeneration.
During regeneration, the waste stream from the treatment vessel is directed to a wastewater reservoir on the west side of the plant. Water-saturated fluoride from the reservoir is pumped into an accordion-like machine called a J-press, which squeezes the water from the fluoride.
That water is used to irrigate 50,000 saltbush plants planted by hand around the treatment facility. Wright said the plants absorb all of the wastewater so none seeps back into the water table.
The dried fluoride, which is classified as non-hazardous waste, is discarded in the county landfill.
The whole eight-hour process of treating the water, and regenerating treatment vessels, is conducted at night to maximize energy efficiency, Wright said.
Completely computerized, it requires only one employee to be on site to monitor the operation.
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EPA Grants $1.8 Million to TPWD
08/04/05 - The Desert Trail
TWENTYNINE PALMS - The Twentynine Palms Water District will soon begin benefiting from almost $1.8 million in grants from the Environmental Protection Agency.
That money will be combined with $2.3 million in local matching funds to pay for $4 million in improvements to the water district's infrastructure.
Improvements will include construction of a million-gallon water storage reservoir and support booster pump station south of Sullivan Road and a two-million gallon water storage reservoir south of Samarkand Drive.
They will also include booster pump stations adjacent to Twentynine Palms Highway and Two Mile Road and about 43,000 linear feet of 12-inch diameter pipeline along existing road and pipeline right of way.
"These water infrastructure improvements will provide for storage and distribution of drinking water, thereby ensuring adequate water supplies within the Twentynine Palms service area," said Alexis Strauss, director of the Water Division in the EPA's Pacific Southwest Regional Office in San Francisco.
Twentynine Palms Water District General Manager Mike Wright said Monday morning that the district began applying for the grants in 2001, when Tina Johnson was still in charge.
"Tina Johnson began the process. I just happen to be the lucky guy at the end of it," he said.
The process was due to come to fruition with the awarding of the grants on Tuesday.
"Jerry Lewis had a lot to do with getting us this," Wright said of the area's longtime congressman.
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He spoke briefly about each of the projects which will be paid for with a combination of grant money and local matching funds.
The million-gallon reservoir south of Sullivan Road, he said, will provide water storage for what is called the 2400 zone, from Sunrise east to the high school, which does not have water storage.
They area is home to 15 percent of the district's 6,900 customers, Wright added.
Two booster pump stations, one south of Sullivan Road and one adjacent to Twentynine Palms Highway, will be associated with the reservoir, one to boost water to the reservoir and another to boost it from the reservoir all the way to the west end of the district, which goes to Lee Drive.
The two-million gallon reservoir, he noted, will have one booster pump station, the one on Two Mile Road.
It will serve an area which accounts for 66 percent of the district.
"It will almost double storage capacity and increase fire flows across the district," Wright said.
Increased storage capacity, he added, will let the district spend more time pumping water in the evening when energy rates are lower.
About 17,000 linear feet of the 43,000 linear feet of pipeline will be associated with the Sullivan Road reservoir, Wright said. The rest, he added with provide a secondary source for the Lear Avenue area of the district, which currently is served by a single source.
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