Corina Lopez for Director, East Bay Municipal Utility District (EBMUD), Ward 7
Our residents deserve healthy, reliable, and affordable drinking water. We are facing a critical time – the high quality drinking water we currently get from the Sierra Nevada snowmelt is under threat on multiple fronts. Climate change has resulted in severe periods of drought, and a growing population continues to put pressure on ever decreasing water supplies.
I’m running for the Ward 7 EBMUD seat (Castro Valley, Ashland, Cherryland, Fairview, parts of San Leandro and San Ramon) to protect our water for a healthy community and to implement viable solutions that will ensure equity in water quality for EBMUD’s customers. This is not an entry level position – you deserve to have someone with elected experience as your advocate.
As an elected official for more than ten years promoting and protecting quality of life regionally, statewide, and nationally, I have successfully led through good times and bad. I know how to deliver results from start to finish.
Resiliency is central to my platform. My pledge to you is to respond to our new normal in Ward 7 – and throughout the EBMUD service area – to protect our water to ensure it is healthy, reliable, and affordable. My solutions include:
• Replacing aging infrastructure that is leaking water and replacing it faster.
• Increasing water recycling through “purple” pipe systems and working to modify building standards so we reuse water for non-potable uses instead of sending it into the Bay, freeing up our high quality Sierra snow pack water for drinking and not for landscaping or industrial uses. This solution is better than the Bayside Groundwater Project which I formally oppose.
• Conserving water through new incentives in billing rates and by reimagining confusing rebate programs.
• Removing the barriers that make it hard for constituents to weigh in during public meetings. Meetings should be held when working people can attend instead of having them in the middle of the day the way they are now.
Lake Chabot Reservoir is a crown jewel and serves as a standby emergency source of water for East Bay residents. It has also served as a place for recreational use. While EBRParks opens this space to the public, Lake Chabot Reservoir is owned by EBMUD. For many years, Lake Chabot Reservoir has suffered from toxic algae blooms. This poses a threat and needs to be addressed directly to ensure the health and safety for all those that recreate there as well as the fish and wildlife that depend on this water source.
EBMUD watershed land should be further opened up for access for recreational use, and I will work with constituents and community groups to find a balanced approach that still protects water quality and wildlife habitat to this end. My pledge to you is also to work collectively with stakeholders to restore and preserve our creeks and watershed areas to promote the preservation of endangered species.
Please join the California Democratic Party, Clean Water Action, Senator Bob Wieckowski, Assemblymember Mia Bonta, Mayor Pauline Cutter, Hon. Ellen Corbett, the Alameda and Contra Costa Labor Councils, and many other leaders, stakeholders, and community members in supporting me for Director, EBMUD Ward 7.
I humbly ask for your vote by November 8th. Thank you.
Corina Lopez