The City Council heard updates on broadband internet service and water reliability Tuesday, beginning with a review by Economic Development Department Manager Mario Giuliani on the history and progress of bringing broadband internet service to the Industrial Park.
In 2010, Giuliani reminded the council, the city commissioned a survey to determine the status of internet service in the industrial park. The results indicated mostly zero or very poor service throughout the park. In 2012, the council designated $750,000, taken from moneys previously earmarked for an intermodal train station, to begin project development.
In 2013, a Request for Proposals (RFP) was published. The most promising bid came from Lit San Leandro (LSL), a company that was created when the city of San Leandro partnered with a company called OSI Soft to build its own broadband loop. Jim Morrison, president and sole employee of LSL,
proposed a similar partnership for Benicia. That proposal was moving forward when Mr. Morrison died suddenly during a hiking trip in 2015, effectively stalling the project.
Successors were soon found for LSL, but the new team determined that the project was not feasible.
Steve Blum of Tellus Venture Associates, a telecommunications company operating out of Marina, California, presented three options that he sees as being available to the city for consideration. One, Benicia can try to finance a broadband infrastructure project on its own, at a cost of between $3 and $5 million. Two, the city can instigate a grant and loan program in which businesses can pay to bring the service to themselves on an individual basis. Three, the city can do nothing and rely on existing providers, primarily AT&T and Comcast, to determine when and how service will be made available.
Councilmember Tom Campbell asked how much of the $3 to $5 million would be for service to the Arsenal area. Blum replied that the arsenal area would account for about 25 to 30 percent of the project cost.
All of the councilmembers and Mayor Elizabeth Patterson posed questions and concerns. The contention that more information was needed before the council could make an informed decision as to how best to proceed was unanimous. Mayor Patterson directed staff to include information about public-private partnership in its next update, an aspect that could be key to the grant and loan funding option.
The council discussed how businesses in a close vicinity to the existing broadband fiber lines could bring the service to their locations more easily and cheaply than those whose businesses are located farther away. It was suggested that through a public-private partnership, the city could step in with additional funds to fill those gaps, making it more equitable for all businesses to participate.
Giuliani told the council that by the time of his next update, scheduled for Feb. 28, staff would be able to provide more specific information.

Water supply
Public Works Director Graham Wadsworth introduced Gwyn-Mohr Tully, co-founder of Tully and Young, to speak about improving water supply reliability for Benicia. Gwyn-Mohr, Wadsworth noted, is an attorney and an expert on water transactions and strategy.
While Tully was there to talk about water supply reliability, Graham noted that staff would like to come back to the council at a later date and talk more about options for addressing potential risks to the water supply.
Wadsworth explained that he invited the speaker to provide council with a “listening and thinking session,” and that this was not a request for the council to take any action at this time.
“I’d like you to look back 50 years – what were your strengths and weaknesses. I’d like you to look forward 50 years – where are some threats and opportunities.” The ultimate goal for the city, he suggested, should be to provide safe, clean, reliable and affordable water for Benicia customers.
In order to present a big-picture perspective, Tully referenced several factors that influence water reliability for Benicia, both directly and indirectly. He pointed out that California has approximately 40,000 acres of farmland and that only 9,000 of those acres are currently irrigated, and that when we convert the non-irrigated farm land for urban uses, it creates a great deal of additional water demand.
Tully also pointed out the considerable unknowns in water supply planning, including the varying amounts of rainwater the state receives in any given year. He gave as an example the year 2015 which was one of the driest years California has seen, while 2017 is already shaping up to be one of the wettest.
He demonstrated how our water supply is tied to state water delivery systems, including how the North Bay Aqueduct is affected by concern for dozens of endangered or threatened fish species there. California’s bay delta water quality control plan is tied in with the San Joaquin Valley and the state is going to demand that more fresh water be delivered to the delta from that region and from the Sacramento area. All of these things will affect the availability of fresh water to Benicia.
Water quality issues that affect water supply reliability include salinity intrusion and warming from increased climate temperatures and sea level rise. An expected reduction in average snow pack, an increase in rainfall and earlier runoffs will have an effect.
If the bay delta project continues to move forward and we increase the amount of water going into the delta, there are two ways in which that water could be distributed. One is the “prior appropriation system,” a fundamental tenet of California water law in which entities with more recently-established water rights would be completely cut off before any reduction to users with longer-existing rights. The alternative would be a more equitable approach, in which rights would be reduced equally to each user. There will be competing mechanisms in play, Tully summarized.
Councilmember Alan Schwartzman asked if there was some minimum amount of water that Benicia is guaranteed to receive. Tully said that no minimum could be guaranteed. He explained that any water provider could potentially run short of the amount needed to meet contracted delivery amounts. The city must determine its risk tolerance as its starting point, rather than a minimum amount of water, because there is no real guarantee of any baseline amount to go by.
Mayor Patterson pointed out that there are additional sources that Benicia is not currently using, which could add to the overall reliability equation. Tully concurred, suggesting that a thorough assessment of water delivery options could be viewed as one would a financial portfolio, with different risk levels attached to different potential sources. He added that an overall decline in availability was almost a certainty.
Patterson pointed out that professors from the University of California at Berkeley and Davis have reported that a sophisticated graywater program, for example, can meet all of a city’s outdoor landscaping needs. Tully added that such alternative sources should most definitely be included in a water reliability assessment.
Wadsworth noted that other agencies have begun using water exchanges, or transfers. He suggested that Benicia could sell some of the unused allocation it receives in wet years. Napa County, he said, recently sold some of its water to Santa Clara. He noted that it can be difficult, with legislative, bureaucratic and environmental complications, but that a company like Tully and Young could help navigate that possibility.

Further information
The complete staff reports on water reliability, rainfall data and delta planning that were provided to the council for this meeting are available on the city’s website at ci.benicia.ca.us under the heading of Government/Agendas. A video transcript of the meeting is also available on the website.

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