Replacing the Vic Trace Reservoir
The tank that stores drinking water for most of the city is nearly seventy years old. The city wants to replace it with two buried tanks at the same site, which means about three years of construction in the Alta Mesa neighborhood, roughly 2028 to 2031. The city's own environmental review says the construction noise cannot be fully fixed. The approval decision is expected in December 2026.
- Alta Mesa neighbors: three years of construction, truck trips on residential streets, and noise the review calls significant and unavoidable.
- Most of the city's water customers: about 70% of the city drinks from this tank; reliability is the stated reason for the project.
- Ratepayers: a major capital project lands in the water budget.
- Five surrounding streets: water mains get replaced along the way.
THE FULL FRAMING · THE AUDITED WORDING OF RECORD ↓COLLAPSE THE FULL FRAMING ↑
The Vic Trace Reservoir — a 10-million-gallon tank built in 1956 in the Alta Mesa neighborhood — stores drinking water for roughly 70% of the city. The City proposes to demolish it and build two fully buried 5-million-gallon reservoirs at the same site, along with water-main replacement in five surrounding streets, citing aging infrastructure, earthquake resilience, repair redundancy, fire-protection capacity, and federal security requirements. Construction would run about three years (roughly 2028–2031) and brings impacts the City's environmental review calls significant and unavoidable — construction noise at surrounding homes and construction-traffic noise along neighborhood haul routes — plus removal of 55 of the site's 108 trees, to be replaced with 75. The review also studied keeping the existing tank and replacing only its roof, which reduces impacts in all ten areas studied but, per the review, would not meet the project's reliability, capacity, and security objectives. Public comment on the Draft EIR is open until July 30; the Planning Commission is expected to make the approval decision in December.
The approval decision is pending. Draft EIR public comment closes July 30, 2026 and the Planning Commission is scheduled to certify the EIR and decide the Conditional Use Permit in December 2026; Council's six recorded actions so far are pre-construction service contracts.
Watching: Draft EIR comment closes July 30, 2026; the Water Commission (August) and City Council (September) take up pre-construction contracts; Planning Commission certification and the Conditional Use Permit decision are expected in December 2026.
WHAT THIS STATE MEANS ↓COLLAPSE ↑
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SHOW THE 2 EARLIER ACTIONS ↓COLLAPSE EARLIER ACTIONS ↑
How this gets decided
This project runs on the CEQA environmental-review clock, and most decisions happen before any City Council vote. Council's role so far has been funding the preparation — six pre-construction service contracts approved since 2023 (design, environmental review, and public outreach), each in the record below. The sequence: the Draft EIR is out now for public comment (through July 30, 2026, 5:00 p.m.); the City then prepares a Final EIR responding to comments; the Water Commission (August) and City Council (September) take up pre-construction contracts; and the Planning Commission is scheduled in December 2026 to certify the EIR and decide the Conditional Use Permit — the approval decision (2026 Roadmap).
Because the EIR finds construction noise significant and unavoidable — mitigation helps but cannot bring it under thresholds — approving the project legally requires a Statement of Overriding Considerations: the Planning Commission must state on the record that the project's benefits outweigh an impact that cannot be fixed (Draft EIR, p. ES-4).
READ THE FULL EXPLAINER · 2 MIN ↓COLLAPSE THE EXPLAINER ↑
How to be heard, right now
- Email comments by July 30, 5:00 p.m. to VicTrace@SantabarbaraCA.gov with the subject line "Vic Trace Reservoir Replacement Project", or mail Kelly Bourque, Senior Engineer, Public Works Engineering, 630 Garden Street (Notice of Availability, p. 2). Per the notice, comments received by the deadline will be considered in the Final EIR.
What the record says (each claim links to its source)
- The reservoir serves nearly 60,000 people — about 70% of the city (city project page).
- The system's stated design rationale is redundancy: two tanks keep one in service during repairs or failures, and the capacity objective covers peak demand, structure fires, and human consumption; a single-tank replacement was rejected because any repair would take the whole facility offline (Draft EIR §7.2.1 and Project Objectives, p. ES-2).
- Construction would run about three years, roughly July 2028 to August 2031, generally weekdays 7 a.m.–5 p.m., with occasional nighttime or weekend work possible to minimize water outages (Draft EIR §2.7.1, p. 2-25–2-26).
- The excavation phase is estimated at ~9,230 two-way truck trips (100–110 per day) on routes the EIR says have no alternative avoiding residential streets; the EIR footnotes these as conservative estimates expected to be reduced in design (Draft EIR §2.7.5, p. 2-28 and Table ES-1).
- Construction vibration could expose nearby structures — including older homes — to damaging levels; mitigation requires low-vibration equipment within 25 feet of residences, bringing the impact below significance (Draft EIR Table ES-1, NOI-4).
- Beyond the reservoir parcel, water mains would be replaced or relocated in La Coronilla Drive, Dolores Drive, Ricardo Avenue, La Vista Del Oceano, and Meigs Road, plus a pressure-reducing-valve station (Draft EIR p. ES-1).
- 55 of 108 site trees would be removed and replaced with 75 (oaks, cottonwoods, elderberries); the Parks & Recreation Commission approved the removals 2026-02-25, conditional on project approval (city project page).
- During construction the reservoir is offline; the City states hydraulic analyses (2019, 2025) confirm offsite storage suffices for the duration (Draft EIR §2.7.2, p. 2-26).
- Ground-disturbing work near Meigs Road/Dolores Drive requires archaeological and Chumash tribal monitoring (Draft EIR Table ES-1, CUL-2).
- The EIR states its scoping process identified no areas of known controversy (Draft EIR p. ES-3).
- Two further alternatives were considered and rejected from full study: an off-site location (infeasible within the hydraulic zone) and a single 10-MG tank (Draft EIR §7.2.1).
Drafted from the cited records and neutrality-audited on 2026-07-09; approved through editorial review the same day — the full genesis record (extraction, audit findings, revision log) is public at /radar/packet-vic-trace. Corrections: every claim above must trace to its linked source; report anything that doesn't.
Next Council meeting: Tuesday, September 1, 2:00 PM at City Hall, 735 Anacapa St.
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