Council presses staff on water storage after grand jury report; staff says need is ~3 million gallons

Council members and residents used the Sept. 16 meeting to press the city on its draft response to a San Mateo County Civil Grand Jury report about water-supply preparedness and emergency storage.

A council member raised alarm at the staff response that said the city needs multiple millions of gallons of storage, saying "we need about 4,600,000 gallons of water, for 3 days of storage," and asked how the city would meet that requirement. Hamza Javed, the public works director, corrected the record in the meeting: "there is a need for a little over 3,000,000 gallons, not 4,600,000 gallons," and explained that staff's water-tank siting study is evaluating options. He said two storage projects are in process—one under design through the Woodland Apartments project (about a 1,500,000-gallon tank) and another constructed as part of the Light Tree Apartments (about 165,000 gallons)—and that adding roughly 3,000,000 additional gallons in siting studies would allow the city to meet the three-day storage requirement once designed and funded.

Staff said the tank siting study is a council priority and a draft study will come to council within about three months; staff also noted they will seek federal and state grants (FEMA and others) once locations are identified. Councilmembers asked for more frequent invoice and cost reviews related to water-system work and urged that staff verify emergency-exercise documentation and procurement practices. The council later adopted a resolution responding to the grand jury report (motion and vote recorded during the meeting).

Speakers (attribution whitelist): [{"name":"Hamza Javed","role_title":"Public Works Director","affiliation_type":"government","affiliation_name":"City of East Palo Alto","first_reference":{"block_id_start":"SEG 1421"}},{"name":"Gail Dixon","role_title":"Resident/Public commenter","affiliation_type":"citizen","affiliation_name":"not specified","first_reference":{"block_id_start":"SEG 288"}}]

Provenance: topicintro: {"block_id_start":"SEG 521","block_id_end":"SEG 625","evidence_excerpt":"this is the 1st time that we've been I've had a grand jury review ... we need about 4,600,000 gallons of water, for 3 days of storage","reason_code":"topicintro"}, topfinish: {"block_id_start":"SEG 745","block_id_end":"SEG 751","evidence_excerpt":"there will be a plan presented to council within the next 3 months","reason_code":"topicfinish"}