The Turlock City Council agreed to move forward with the largest capital works project the city has ever done by approving participation in the development of the Surface Water Project. A Joint Powers Authority partnership has been formed between Turlock, Hughson, Ceres, and Modesto.
The plant would make TID provided river water to be drinking water. Turlock gets all of the city’s drinking water from wells. Turlock would receive an estimated 15 million gallons of water a day from the project.
TID has already done about 8 million of work on the project and have gone from proposing to own and operate the plant to just providing the raw water. Cities are responsible for repayment of most of that $8 million. The project is estimated at $197 million, Turlock’s 33percent portion is estimated at around $65 million.
User fees will be impacted to help fund the project. A rate analysis is being done and will most likely be presented in fall.
