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Board approves CAP outreach survey and advances well‑metering policy development
Summary
Directors approved deployment of an 800‑sample bilingual survey to gauge public awareness and messaging for the CAP project and heard staff outline a two‑part well registration and metering policy; directors asked for clearer language on costs, exemptions and meter testing plans.
The Carpinteria Valley Water District board voted unanimously to proceed with a proposed community survey designed to measure public awareness of the CAP advanced purification project and test messaging for outreach. Amy Stevens, the consultant leading the poll, said the instrument will be deployed in English and Spanish to about 800 adults via phone, text, email and postcards and will include demographic screening and A/B testing on support and opposition arguments.
Directors asked consultants to remove a partisan registration question from the end of the survey, tighten demographic placement, shorten the instrument where possible and clarify technical wording (for example, referring to "State Water Project" rather than generically to "imported water"). Several board members and a public commenter also urged limiting intrusive demographic questions and shortening the survey to improve response rates.
Separately, staff presented a draft two‑part well registration and metering policy for the GSA: a well registration database to catalog roughly 300 known wells (about 70 surveyed so far) and a metering program defining how and when meters would be required, accuracy and testing protocols, exemptions for de minimis wells (residential wells producing under two acre‑feet per year), enforcement alternatives (tax roll collection vs. direct billing) and options such as AMI telemetry versus manual reads. Staff said the policy drafting will continue with stakeholder listening sessions, surveys and targeted outreach to the agricultural community with the goal of finalizing policy components in 2025.
Board members raised implementation concerns: configuration of complex well piping, access and compliance particularly for cannabis operations, realistic timelines for installation and testing, and whether a one‑year implementation window after adoption is feasible. Staff noted they are examining other agencies' approaches (Fox Canyon/Oxnard) and plan multiple listening sessions and advisory outreach to capture feedback before final adoption.
The board also received a listening‑session report summarizing stakeholder themes: cost and rate transparency ranked highest, low overall awareness of the CAP project, persistent "toilet‑to‑tap" concerns (staff recommends using "toilet‑to‑recharge" language), and recommendations for ongoing outreach, visual materials and joint messaging with the sanitation district.
