Fig. 1: Cost to agency of methods to address chronic overdraft in the Pajaro Valley53.
ReNeM’s annualized cost compared favourably with that for alternative projects proposed to address chronic overdraft in the Pajaro Valley. At US$570 per AF, ReNeM’s per unit annualized cost was lower than that of all alternative projects except increased recycled water deliveries and conservation. Each block in this figure represents a project that PV Water has under consideration, its estimated cost per AF and its volumetric contribution to addressing chronic groundwater overdraft. The orange vertical line shows the Pajaro Valley’s chronic overdraft volume. Conservation (D-7) is the only demand management strategy prescribed in the BMP. Assuming no other demand management strategies, all projects to the left of this orange line (projects displayed in green) must be implemented to address chronic overdraft. To the right of this orange line, projects in grey were evaluated by PV Water in its BMP, but it considers them to be non-priority projects for addressing the basin’s chronic overdraft. Project codes are defined in Table 2.
