It is not often that we read stories relating to our local water districts. Today’s Flash Report included a link to a San Diego Union Tribune story relating to water conservation along with increased usage rates. That brings back memories.
In Nov 2000 I ran for a seat on our local water district Board. On the League of Women Voters web site I added a Position Paper which read “Water–A Quality of Life Issue.”
My opening paragraph was a quote which reads: “In a stinging rebuke of state water policy, a Sacramento appeals court has sided with environmentalists who say California is fueling excessive development–particularly in southern California–by promising more water than it can realistically deliver. “ A lawsuit was filed at that time by the Regional Council of Rural Counties against the CalFed’s water plan/accord. RCRC Chairman Tom Bamert stated: “California can’t continue to promise more water than is available for urban growth.” Was he correct?
My personal comments in that white paper follow: With a finite supply and growing demand I have been concerned about our future availability of safe drinking water. We need to formulate a strategic Management Plan to guide future policy decisions into the first quarter of the 21st Century.
Readers. Do we currently have a plan?
I now believe that the decision to increase water rates is to level the playing field as we shift to using recycled water which is still a costly process. It raises the question of the county approval of adding two million square feet of commercial construction along with up to 14,000 housing units at Rancho Mission Viejo off Ortega Highway in the unincorporated area of Orange County between San Juan Capistrano and Lake Elsinore. Did they ever consider that impact along with Irvine’s Great Park and the Platinum Triangle developments as we shortly will be expected to “use less and pay more” to accommodate the demand of these future neighbors and neighborhoods?
While I joined Ed Royce, Sr. VP Metropolitan Water District, on a tour of the $2 billion Diamond Valley Lake reservoir in 2000, we were told that this project serves as an insurance policy against any earthquake or drought that would disrupt our current source. It was designed to hold six months of emergency storage south of the San Andreas Fault. It is not simply another source for everyday usage.
Hello folks. Just as we expect our cars to start every time we turn the ignition switch most of us take immediate and an infinite supply of safe drinking water for granted. One of the reasons we overlook water and sewerage is that the pipes are all buried underground and we simply assume that the delivery systems are meeting our demand without interruption. Larry G
SD Union Tribune. CALIFORNIA’S WATER: A VANISHING RESOURCE
New creed on water: Use less, pay more
By Mike Lee Note: Edited by Larry G to reduce the text.
Union-Tribune Staff Writer
If you think mandatory water rationing is painful, wait until you see your water bill in several months.
The Metropolitan Water District, the main supplier for Southern California, is marching toward rate increases of about 40 percent over two years – the largest spike since the early 1990s. Its higher prices could show up as early as September.
But that’s not all.
Some local water districts had planned to boost rates to pay for expenses such as maintaining their own pumps and pipes, so they will add their increases to Metropolitan’s. And districts countywide are drafting stiff penalties or fees to encourage water conservation amid California’s drought.
“Stunning, isn’t it?” said Mark Watton, general manager of the Otay Water District in Spring Valley.
It could feel like a punch in the gut for recession-weary residents, who will have to pay much more for water and use much less.
Metropolitan is expected to finalize its rate structure April 14. The agency’s directors are set to adopt a water-rationing plan and set higher prices for Southern California. That will prompt new rates across San Diego County as local water districts pass along the rising costs.
The steep rate increases are meant to help Metropolitan cover its fixed costs during times when it sells less water – and thus gets less revenue.
In recent days, Metropolitan officials have considered several options that mainly differ on how to split the increase from year to year. One scenario calls for a 33.9 percent rise in wholesale water costs in 2010, followed by a 5.4 percent jump in 2011. Another proposal would impose a 19.7 percent increase in September and a 21.5 percent rise in 2011.
“They are both bad,” said Jim Barrett, San Diego city’s water chief and a Metropolitan board member. “I don’t think anybody is happy about where we find ourselves.”
San Diego, by far the county’s largest water agency, has raised rates at least five times since mid-2007 and has approved more increases that will take effect in three months and again in July 2010. After factoring in Metropolitan’s plan, many residents will pay at least 70 percent more per gallon than they did in early 2007.
Each water district in San Diego County has its own rate formula, based on factors such as their water sources and construction projects. Some agencies’officials said a 40 percent Metropolitan jump would translate to a 20 percent to 30 percent rate boost for their customers; others said it’s too soon to speculate.
In anticipation of Metropolitan’s next move, leaders of the Vallecitos Water District in San Marcos are looking at phasing in average rate increases of 17.5 percent and 9.5 percent over two years. The agency also is contemplating punitive drought rates for water hogs.
Officials there and at other water agencies agree that customers shouldn’t expect rate rollbacks when the drought ends. If some costs decrease, they likely will be replaced by the expense of improving California’s water reliability through building new canals, dams, desalination plants or other means.
“This water pricing isn’t temporary,” said Watton at Otay.
California’s water shortages stem from two problems: years of below-average snowfall across the Southwest and restrictions on pumping water through the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta to protect imperiled fish.
The crisis is pushing up prices from north to south, said Laura King Moon, assistant general manager of State Water Contractors, a nonprofit group that represents major water buyers including Metropolitan.
“Right now, you are seeing the first bump of significant rate increases, and you are seeing large portions of the San Joaquin Valley laying off farmworkers,” Moon said. “That alone is painful, but it’s not the end.”
Concern is growing among business leaders, said Patti Krebs, executive director of the Industrial Environmental Association, a group of manufacturing companies in San Diego County. She said water and power are top expenses for her members.
At some point, Krebs said, higher water bills “will make their operating costs increase so greatly that they will have to look at moving their lines to other places and not expanding here.”
“The general trend among U.S. drinking-water suppliers is double-digit increases annually in their rates,” said Amy Vickers, a water consultant in Amherst, Mass. She links the trend to higher costs for chemicals used to treat water, electricity and other factors.
“People may be frustrated that they are conserving, but the rates are going up,” Vickers said. “They really need to think this is a fair warning that if they don’t conserve, they are really going to pay through the nose” for other sources of water such as desalination plants.
To read the entire story simply go to the following link:
http://www3.signonsandiego.com/stories/2009/apr/04/1n4rates01323-htk/?uniontrib
Perhaps a simpler solution is to follow the example of parts of Hawaii and just limit new connections to the water system.
Larry M.
Sometimes we are faced with tough choices. As a fighter to protect private property rights I do not want government to interfere in our rights to develop the land which we own. However, we do need checks and balances as to realisitic mitigation measures. We take a lot for granted as we awake in the morning and turn on our sinks as we brush our teeth, shower and flush our toilets. Think about the early years when southern CA was a desert.
A very interesting Streamline Publications article from 1998 provides some historical background information. Finding the Register story of Santa Ana’s water challenge today was totally a surprise. I guess the topic on availability of water warrants news coverage.
“Ignoring Limits of Water Use
Developers have been known to display unrealistic optimism that sufficient water will be located for their projects.
Part I: Where Our Water Comes From
© 1998 Streamline Publications
The history of southern California has evolved through an inescapable dichotomy—the scarcity of water and continued burgeoning development. This desert, extending from the state’s southeastern border to the Pacific shore, has few natural water sources. Though it is only during times of drought that this fact is given credence. It may be fairly said, considering the pressure of population, that “drought” is the prevailing climate. When the rains finally come, often all at once, water then becomes a great destructive force in a land, alternately, of none and too much.
One of the nation’s greatest disasters—the 1928 Saint Francis Dam break which killed over 400 citizens of Santa Paula in Ventura County—was spawned by a failed attempt to store precious imported water.
Fetching Water
A cycle without end—this imperfect circle of growth began in the early 20th century when the small community of Los Angeles developed at a rate that outstripped its water supply. Water imported—some say “stolen”—from the Owens Valley in the eastern Sierra met the needs of the city. The Los Angeles Aqueduct, an engineering marvel that was dedicated in 1913, carried water 250 miles south without the use of pumping stations. This new abundance of water was supplied to other communities as well, providing a source of confidence that development in the region could proceed unhindered. The “California Dream” was born.
Land speculation mushroomed as the region’s Mediterranean climate—promoted by railroad and real estate interests—plus this new source of water, drew home and land buyers. By 1939, a continually growing thirst was temporarily abated with additional water coming from the Colorado River through a 240-mile aqueduct. Still more water was imported from the Sacramento River via the California Aqueduct beginning in 1973. As each new water source quelled fears of shortages it led to even more development, in turn, leading to increased, never-ending demand for water.
Independent Supplies
As the millennium approaches is it clear that the numbers no longer add up as demand outstrips supply. Economic and political pressure, no matter how forceful and insistent, cannot create water. Increasingly, communities dependent on the Metropolitan Water District’s imported water supply are looking elsewhere, trying to locate alternate sources or to conserve what is available.
Ventura County is developing its aquifers for underground storage. When full, they provide several year’s supply for the area. San Diego County—a reluctant MWD customer since WWII when a huge wartime population increased its need—is striking a deal with the Imperial Valley’s Imperial Irrigation District to shift water from certain farmlands to heavily-populated areas on the coast.
MWD, itself, is building the Eastside Reservoir near Hemet, a storage facility in a dry valley that will be filled with imported water and which will provide not only for routine need, but is envisioned as an emergency source of water south of the San Andreas Fault should earthquakes cut off the California and Los Angeles aqueducts.
Sources Drying Up
The overall prospect for providing southern California with reliable water for its present population is unlikely to improve. It clearly has the potential to get much worse when one considers:
California has been overdrawing its allotment of Colorado River water by 20 percent. Of the seven states and Mexico entitled to this water, California is by far the biggest user. A dispute over the agreement—The Colorado River Compact—that apportions the water that had been ongoing between California and Arizona for decades was settled in Arizona’s favor.
The “peripheral canal” measure—which would have captured western Sierra water before it could reach the San Francisco Bay-Delta, then to be shipped south, was defeated in 1982 but the dispute continues anew over a similar diversionary canal proposal.
Plans floated to import water from as far away as Washington and Alaska are opposed, particularly by those expected to supply the water.
Pollyanna, Incorporated
As the problem of quenching the thirst of the current California population grinds on, developers draw plans to increase the population— and the thirst. A project that has particularly stirred opposition is the Newhall Ranch development (see Part II of this series).
The economic vitality that is returning to California after years of uncertainty—military base closures; industry flight to other less-regulatory, tax-friendly states; a disastrous decline in real estate values and industrial occupancy; waning tax revenue—is bringing with it a resurgence of building. Good news for investors, new jobs for the state’s workers—but a new round of increasing water demand for the inevitable population boom.
Larry G,
Nobody is interfering with your development rights – do what you please with your land but don’t expect a perpetually guaranteed connection to subsidized water from the local government. Bring in icebergs or anything else you please. Hiking-up the price of water to enourage a population boom is the same as a tax increase – we have enough of those.
There is all that water just sitting there in the ocean ready to be used and recycled .
And just think, with global warming increasing ocean levels (they say) it is like getting free delivery of the supply of raw salt water needed to convert to fresh drinking water.
Larry M.
Don’t misread my comment on property rights. We must set some control on future developments rather than simply marching ahead with my original title. “Build, baby build.”
We read projections that the population of our state will grow from 34/35 million today to 60 million by 2050. This is insanity. I don’t care if we put everyone in Japanese style 500 square foot cubicles in high rises we still must face reality as it relates to several factors led by the availability of water and power.
Our city planners are clueless in their approvals of development agreements. While we read about EIR’s where is the safeguards on water for agriculture, industry and housing as we rampp up. show me the 2050 plan that corresponds to the 50 or 60 million californians.
Desalization is here. Get used to it.
How do you think our astronauts get fresh water in the International space Station where they spend months at a time? No, not the cruise ship joke of a long water hose back to earth.
Sac Bee just forwarded the following report on this very topic.
Drought-weary Australia a guide to California’s future?
By Matt Weiser
Published: Saturday, Apr. 4, 2009 – 12:00 am |
Think California’s drought looks bad? Look to Australia for a reality check.
The land of kangaroos and koalas is suffering its worst drought in history. It began in 2001, and it’s been bad enough to win a spooky name: the Millennium Drought.
Australian leaders have responded aggressively to what they view as a permanent state caused by climate change.
At the recent World Water Forum in Istanbul, Australian efforts were held up as a model for regions pondering a warmer, thirstier future. That resonates in California these days.
At the forum, The Bee interviewed Greg Claydon, director of strategic water initiatives for the state of Queensland, Australia. That state will spend $9 billion on three wastewater recycling plants, a desalination plant, two new dams and 120 miles of pipe to link them in a flexible new supply network.
Similar solutions – desalination, wastewater recycling, dams and major diversions of river water – also are on the table here, as California struggles through water-supply threats in a third year of drought.
Australia’s work has been sweeping, from severe water rationing and new plumbing standards to rainwater catchment and ocean desalination.
That’s just the hardware.
Australia also assessed the true yield of all its watersheds and is buying back water to protect the environment.
It rewrote water laws to give agriculture a legal entitlement to water akin to a property right (as in California, farmers are Australia’s biggest water consumers). This seems counterintuitive, but was necessary to ensure a supply for everyone. It also created a cap-and-trade water market to prevent waste, similar to efforts to control greenhouse gases.
Rather than use water for low-value crops like cotton, some Australian farmers now earn a living selling water to cities or other farms that grow high-value crops, like grapes.
How would these changes fit in California’s water culture?
“They would be very radical,” said Eric Garner, an attorney in Riverside and chair of the International Bar Association’s water law committee. “Quantifying all (water) rights in California would be a very radical shift, and allowing them to be traded – to be bought and sold freely – would be a very significant change.”