There’s a vigorous contest for two posts on the Marin Municipal Water District’s five-member governing board in the November election. The policy difference between the candidates is represented by two conflicting goals. Is the water district’s highest priority providing water security during drought years for its 191,000 central and southern Marin consumers? Alternatively, should its top job be stabilizing already steep water rates? The two laudable goals appear to be irreconcilable. The first assignment requires constructing expensive new infrastructure of pipelines and raising the height of dam spillways. Conversely, the second goal foregoes those physical improvements and instead advocates restoring MMWD’s once dominant “conservation first” strategy. Conservation-first proponents contend that discouraging water use is the least costly method to keep the faucets flowing. That translates into less water for landscaping and during extreme droughts of water rationing.
—Written by Dick Spotswood of Mill Valley who writes on local issues for the Marin Independent Journal