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June 28, 2022 \u2014 About a hundred property owners in the town of Mendocino have received a letter from the State Water Board\u2019s Division of Drinking Water, asking them to complete a questionnaire to determine whether or not they are operating a public water system. \nIt\u2019s the first step in regulating businesses that may be serving water to the public without the inspections and treatments and permits required by law to prevent water-borne diseases. And it may be the first step in a state-regulated \u201cregional solution\u201d that includes the Town of Mendocino consolidating with other water users, though who would consolidate with whom and where the water would come from are questions that haven\u2019t been answered yet. It\u2019s also not entirely clear why the state and the county have not synchronized efforts to find out what kinds of businesses should have been identified as public water systems when they were first setting up shop. \nZachary Rounds is the Mendocino District Engineer for the State Water Resources Control Board Division of Drinking Water, overseeing public water systems in Mendocino, Lake and Napa Counties. It doesn\u2019t take much to meet the definition of a public water system.\n\u201cA public water system, at its most basic, is an entity that serves potable water for domestic use, and that serves at least 25 people, 60 days a year\u2026I say if you have a restaurant that\u2019s open one day a week, all year round, you actually are not a public water system, but if it\u2019s two days a week, that would be 104 days with 25 people, that would make you a public water system,\u201d he explained. \u201cYou could also be a public water system if you have 15 service connections with year-round residents.\u201d\nAt Monday\u2019s meeting of the Mendocino City Community Services District board, Rounds told directors what it will take to permit each system. \u201cThe water system needs to demonstrate that they have adequate technical, managerial and financial capacity to operate as a public water system\u2026different tests on the water to ensure that it\u2019s free from various forms of contamination, adequate source and storage capacity; that they\u2019re essentially financially stable enough to operate a public water system without eventually falling into ruin; that they have adequate managerial control over the water system; that they are actually the ones that control the water right there\u2026we typically work with the water system to ensure a complete permit package,\u201d he said. \u201cAfter we\u2019ve received the complete permit package, we\u2019ll usually do a final review, perform an inspection of the water system, make final determinations, and, if they meet the criteria, issue a permit.\u201d\nThe letter says that the water board will not initiate enforcement actions against systems that are working to come into compliance. Donna Feiner of Feiner Fixings, a plumber and water operator who manages 27 water systems on the coast, was also at the meeting. She took a question about the rough costs of running a water system, though there are a lot of variables, and no two are exactly the same. \u201cSo once a month you have to check for bacteria in the water,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s coliform and e. Coli. And quarterly you have to check the well for bacteria and e. Coli. I usually find that the paperwork takes about five, six hundred dollars to do, because it\u2019s a lot. And then it\u2019s usually a visit once a week to check the system, and then it\u2019s sampling once a month, and then once a year for nitrate. So, figuring two hundred dollars a month to cover that. Those are just rough numbers. And then whatever it needs to bring them into compliance.\u201d\nAnd \u201cbad bacties,\u201d or high bacteria levels, are not always hypothetical, as Feiner recalled in one system she managed. The tank didn\u2019t have a good cover, so birds would sit on top of it and foul the water. \u201cThey had to fix the tank so that didn't happen anymore, and then put in a chlorination system to keep the water safe,\u201d she concluded.\nFeiner\u2019s own business expenses are rising too, with the cost of chlorine doubling and the price of caustic soda much higher than they were before the pandemic. And a lab on the coast has closed, which means she has to be precise about timing the delivery of water samples to a lab in Ukiah. \nRounds said the state sees advantages to working with larger water entities, though he suggested that local organizations are welcome to propose solutions that might not include each and every business going through the permitting process. Director Howard Hauck asked if the state would be willing to pay for a larger community water system. Rounds replied that, \u201cWe are interested in water systems consolidating with each other,\u201d because the state finds that working with a few larger water systems is more resilient and more efficient than working with lots of small ones. \u201cMost of the consolidations that I\u2019ve witnessed have been small systems connecting to a much larger water system,\u201d he noted.\nHowever, he added that the division of financial assist...