Each summer, the Nacimiento Water Infiltration line is installed during peak summer months to reduce the city’s reliance on rainwater.
Water resources manager for the City of Paso Robles, David Athey, explained how the infiltration line improves efficiency: “It keeps those well fields operating at full capacity in the summer months when the water level in the Salinas River drops naturally, just because we’re not getting any more rain.”
For the past five years, the water line has been installed in the summer and disassembled as the rainy season approaches. Athey explained relying on the infiltration line is more cost-effective for the city and its residents.
“It just allows us not to have to turn the wells down and not to rely on other more expensive sources of groundwater. This is all factored into our rates that the citizens pay for water in Paso Robles,” said Athey.
The City of Paso Robles re-evaluates its water rates every five years. Therefore, cost reductions on projects now won’t have a direct impact on rates until 2027 when water rates are up for re-evaluation. Athey said they factored the Nacimiento Infiltration line’s economic efficiency into their rate change in 2022.
“Our rates were last adopted in 2022. So we considered this recharge in our rates so the rates wouldn’t actually be higher by relying on more expensive sources of groundwater,” said Athey.
A study conducted on water rates in 2022 placed Paso Robles among one of the cities with the lowest water rates for single families with low water usage at $42.80 per month and the highest city at $105.98 per month.
