Folsom Water Vision sets a 50-year roadmap focused on reliability, resilience and future growth
FOLSOM — The City of Folsom has unveiled a comprehensive 50-year strategy aimed at protecting and strengthening the community’s water supply, introducing what officials describe as a proactive blueprint for long-term reliability and resilience. City leaders reviewed a presentation of the plan at Tuesday’s City Council Meeting and the plan has since been released for public review.
Known as Folsom Water Vision, the plan lays out a forward-looking framework to safeguard the city’s high-quality water resources while preparing for future challenges tied to drought, population growth, climate change and infrastructure risks. City officials said the plan reflects both decades of previous water planning efforts and extensive community input gathered over the past year.
Developed by City of Folsom staff in collaboration with regional partners and stakeholders, the plan focuses on diversifying water supply sources, strengthening infrastructure, and building redundancy into the system. While the city’s current water resources are sufficient for the near and intermediate future, officials emphasized that continued reliance on Folsom Reservoir — particularly amid increasingly frequent and severe drought conditions — underscores the need for long-range planning.
City staff conducted a wide-ranging evaluation of Folsom’s existing water system, assessing vulnerabilities and screening alternative supply options. The process included six public workshops, outreach to key stakeholders, and a 30-day public comment period designed to ensure the plan reflected community priorities and values.
Those efforts culminated in the identification of five major program areas that form the backbone of Folsom Water Vision. Together, they outline how the city can maintain dependable service today while creating flexibility to adapt to changing conditions in the decades ahead.
At the core of the strategy is a base program focused on optimizing existing water supplies and continuing regional collaboration. Building from there, the plan calls for creating additional redundancy in raw water delivery by designing and constructing a second pipeline from Folsom Reservoir to the city’s treatment facilities. Another major component examines options to expand treated water capacity, either through additions to the existing Water Treatment Plant or construction of a second facility.
Diversifying potable water supplies is also a central focus of the plan. This includes pursuing partnerships with neighboring agencies to access new sources and constructing the infrastructure necessary to integrate those supplies into Folsom’s system when needed to address future supply and demand gaps. In parallel, the city plans to further explore opportunities to develop and expand non-potable water systems, which could reduce demand on drinking water supplies by supporting uses such as irrigation.
Community values helped shape each element of the plan, according to city officials. Feedback from workshop participants and survey respondents consistently highlighted priorities such as maintaining high-quality water, keeping rates affordable, building trust in the water system, ensuring reliability and resilience, and promoting efficient water use.
To address uncertainty over the next half-century, Folsom Water Vision establishes a phased implementation framework. This approach allows the city to move forward with specific projects as conditions warrant, rather than committing to all infrastructure investments at once. Officials said this adaptability is key to responding responsibly to future growth, climate variability and evolving regulatory requirements while maintaining dependable service for residents.
City leaders acknowledged the role residents and stakeholders played in shaping the plan, noting that public engagement was essential in defining priorities and building consensus around long-term water planning.
The full Folsom Water Vision plan is available for public review atwww.folsom.ca.us/watervision. Questions about the plan or the city’s water strategy can be directed to Utilities Director Marcus Yasutake atmyasutake@folsom.ca.us.
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