[Water_news] 5. DWR'S CALIFORNIA WATER NEWS: AGENCIES, PROGRAMS, PEOPLE - 5/2/07

Department of Water Resources

California Water News

A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment

 

May 2, 2007

 

5. Agencies, Programs, People

 

WATER TRANSFER:

Judges hear SD County's historic water transfer dispute - North County Times

 

GROUNDWATER TAX:

Water officials delay decision on proposed tax - Stockton Record

 

MCCLOUD BOTTLING PLANT ISSUES:

Water plant foes rundry on legal options - Redding Record Searchlight

 

WATER AGENCY OVERSIGHT:

Editorial: Water agencies left on their own; Our view: Changing a contract for a dead man enough to raise suspicions - San Bernardino Sun

 

 

WATER TRANSFER:

Judges hear SD County's historic water transfer dispute

North County Times – 5/1/07

By Gig Conaughton, staff writer

 

SAN DIEGO ---- A long-running dispute over whether San Diego County's historic deal to buy billions of gallons of water from Imperial Valley farmers has hurt or helped the valley made its way into court Monday.

Dan Hentschke, the San Diego County Water Authority's top lawyer, said the binding arbitration hearing before a three-judge panel was scheduled to be held in five days, but that a decision could take "several weeks."

 

If judges side with the Water Authority, which contends that the deal has not hurt Imperial County, the valley will have to abandon its claims that San Diego County residents should pay more ---- costs that irrigation district officials predicted would approach $170 million.

 

Imperial Irrigation District officials say the water transfer has hurt Imperial Valley. If the judges side with those officials, Hentschke said, the Water Authority would probably push for a new economic study.

The 2003 deal is scheduled to bring San Diego County residents up to 65 billion gallons of water a year for 45 to 75 years in return for roughly $50 million a year. Water Authority officials say that by 2020, the transfer will supply one of every five glasses of drinking water for San Diego County residents.

Irrigation district officials say the deal has put Imperial Valley people and businesses out of work because farms had to be taken out of production to come up with the water.

Water Authority officials ---- and an independent 2004 economic study ---- disagree.

When the transfer deal was signed, both sides agreed that the Water Authority, and county ratepayers, would pay for any and all "socioeconomic harm" in the valley that exceeded $20 million.

But the 2004 study ruled that the money the Water Authority had already paid had created a cumulative $1.1 million windfall in the valley ---- even though irrigation district officials predicted the harm would be close to $170 million.

Hentschke said Monday that the three-judge panel would listen to testimony to determine if the 2004 study was valid.

Irrigation district officials did not return calls Monday. But in March, irrigation district board member John Pierre Menvielle ---- who considers himself a supporter of the deal ---- said the transfer was "extremely controversial" and that Water Authority officials were "loony tunes" if they thought it hadn't hurt valley residents.

"There will not be any more water transfers out of Imperial County," he said then.

Hentschke, meanwhile, said about the arbitration, "Obviously, we both believe that our respective positions are correct."

The Water Authority-Irrigation District water transfer was signed in October 2003 after more than eight years of on-again, off-again negotiations, and was itself part of a larger deal between California and other Western states to get California to cut its overuse of the Colorado River.

Because the transfer is a signed contract, the current dispute would not affect the water agreement.

Under the terms of the deal, the actual delivery of water is scheduled to ramp up slowly to its peak over 19 years. In 2003, Imperial Valley farmers sent 10,000 acre feet ---- or 3.259 billion gallons, enough to sustain the annual water needs of 20,000 households. That amount rose to 20,000 acre feet in 2004, then 30,000 acre feet in 2005, 40,000 acre feet in 2006, and will bring 50,000 acre feet this year.

In return, Water Authority officials said the agency had paid the irrigation district a total of $27.64 million, and an additional $25.65 million to Southern California's main water supplier, the Metropolitan Water District, to use its pipelines to ship the water to San Diego County.

By 2020, the deal will deliver 200,000 acre feet a year to county residents, making up 22 percent of the county's total water supply ---- more than 1 out of every 5 glasses of water.

San Diego County water officials pursued the deal at first because they wanted "cheaper, more reliable" water than what they buy from Metropolitan. The water has turned out not to be cheaper. But Water Authority officials insist it is still more reliable, and a boon to county residents.

Imperial Valley water officials assented to the deal largely because they were being pressured by federal officials to build expensive improvements to irrigation systems that would make the valley more water-efficient ---- and needed the cash to do that.

For Imperial Valley, the most controversial aspect of the water transfer was the requirement for farmers to "fallow," or take out of production, some land to come up with the water for the first 15 years of the transfer. #

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2007/05/01/news/sandiego/10_06_824_30_07.txt

 

 

GROUNDWATER TAX:

Water officials delay decision on proposed tax

Stockton Record – 5/2/07

 

LODI - Directors of the North San Joaquin County Water Conservation District will take another week to consider the protests of a group of farmers and north county residents angered over a proposed tax on the groundwater they pump to irrigate their farmland.

 

In a meeting at Hutchins Street Square on Monday night, the district's board of directors and its resident engineer pitched the tax to a crowd of about 300 people who opposed new fees. Directors could not consider all the complaints raised and delayed a decision on the proposal.

 

If approved, the fee could cost landowners hundreds of dollars a year. Landowners would be taxed $6.42 per acre for a vineyard to as much as $21.40 per acre of a residential lot in a rural area, according to a district proposal.

 

Engineer Ed Steffani, along with directors, urged opponents to reconsider their stance. He said that the district could be forced to fold if it does not get enough money to extend pipelines to the Mokelumne River.

 

Additional access to Mokelumne water might allow the district to continue drawing water from the river, a claim now in jeopardy based on a recent state ruling. The East Bay Municipal Utility District has rights to the vast majority of available water in the Mokelumne River.

 

Many farmers say they do not have access to the river's water and are forced to use wells.

 

The landowners' major opposition to the tax is an apparent confusion about what the assessment would go toward and what services the water conservation district actually provides them.

 

The board of directors will meet again Monday to finalize a decision on the proposed tax. #

http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070502/A_NEWS/705020325

 

 

MCCLOUD BOTTLING PLANT ISSUES:

Water plant foes run dry on legal options

Redding Record Searchlight – 5/2/07

By Kimberly Ross, staff writer

 

A lawsuit opposing the contract for a McCloud water-bottling plant failed to gain a review by the state Supreme Court, tapping dry its last legal option to reverse the agreement.

 

Meanwhile, consultants continue preparing responses to the 3,000 to 4,000 pages of public comments on the proposed plant’s draft environmental impact report (EIR). They hope to finish by late summer, after which the proposal would go before Siskiyou County planning commissioners. In Sacramento, the Supreme Court’s decision not to hear the final appeal of the Concerned McCloud Citizens ends a years long dispute — but another lawsuit could challenge the EIR once it is final, said Rob Saperstein, a Santa Barbara-based attorney for Nestle Waters North America.

 

“We knew we were being looked at over both shoulders, and unfortunately, we expect that we’ll have to go through it again,” Saperstein said. The legal battle began when the Concerned Citizens sued the McCloud Community Service District and Nestle for signing a 2003 contract before the water company’s proposal underwent an environmental review. The contract allows Nestle to buy up to 1,600 acre-feet of water per year from the district’s springs. Saperstein said the contract was conditioned on the project passing the same California Environmental Quality Act requirements the Citizens sought to uphold.

 

In 2005 a Siskiyou County judge disagreed with that argument. Then Nestle’s appeal to the 3rd District Court of Appeal was upheld in January. Its justices found the contract valid and granted court costs to Nestle and the district. The Citizens appealed to the state’s highest court, which declined to review the case, which was marked complete Monday, court records show. Calls to the Citizens’ attorney, as well as to the McCloud Watershed Council’s office and one of its board members, were not returned Tuesday. The council has previously raised concerns about the project’s EIR.  #

http://www.redding.com/news/2007/may/02/water-plant-foes-rundry-legal-options/

 

 

WATER AGENCY OVERSIGHT:

Editorial: Water agencies left on their own; Our view: Changing a contract for a dead man enough to raise suspicions

San Bernardino Sun – 5/2/07

 

The case of a Mojave Desert water agency that sweetened the contract of an ailing part-time general manager hours after he was already dead could be just a drop in the bucket compared with other problems of mismanagement and/or fraud that could be percolating undetected.

 

That's because of a tremendous lack of oversight of California's many water districts. These agencies, which quietly and obscurely provide the all-important resource to communities all across the state, are essentially unmonitored, and unregulated.

But that doesn't mean that all is calm. Such benign neglect provides anonymity for agencies like the Bighorn-Desert View Water Agency in Yucca Valley that goes beyond their physical remoteness. It can easily result in such deals as the posthumous contract awarded to Thomas Shollenberger flying below the radar.

 

On Aug. 22, the five members of the tiny desert agency met to discuss giving full benefits to Shollenberger and his wife. The board voted unanimously to provide medical coverage for Shollenberger and his wife, along with a $20,000 life insurance policy.

 

Problem was, Shollenberger had died 13 hours earlier.

 

The San Bernardino County District Attorney's Public Integrity Unit now is investigating whether the contract change was an act of kindness to a dying man, or whether something criminal occurred. Of key concern is at what point district officials learned that Shollenberger had died from throat cancer the previous day. Shollenberger's first two contracts did not include health benefits. But a month before his death, he had begun asking for health insurance for his wife - at which point, the board obliged, granting it in August.

 

Yet as a part-time employee, working two days a week on site, Shollenberger was not eligible for benefits. And even though his contract was not amended until August, he had been receiving benefits since his hire 30 months earlier.

 

Moreover, though district officials say they nullified the arrangement granting benefits once they learned of Shollenberger's death, his widow, Eleanor Shollenberger, ultimately was paid $20,000 from the life insurance policy.

 

There are other questionable aspects in the Bighorn case, beyond Shollenberger's contract, that demand greater accountability from such agencies. Alleged conflicts of interest involving one of the five Bighorn board members are also being investigated by the DA's Public Integrity Unit.

 

Investigators are looking at claims that Sharon Edwards violated the state's conflict-of-interest laws by pushing for lower water rates for commercial customers. Edwards owns a water hauling business in town, and is one of three board members, including the president of the Bighorn agency, who now are facing recall.

Edwards was a member of the committee the district formed once it started losing money from its well to study the issue of how much to charge customers. And not surprisingly, she recommended that residences pay more. Yet how she could be tapped to recommend rates for customers that included her own business is amazing.

 

For all of the problems that can arise from a lack of watchful supervision, there is a remarkable laissez-faire at the state level concerning what goes on with these agencies. Or even, concerning exactly which agencies are operating in California. Not even the State Water Resources Control Board seems able to provide a list delineating all of the water districts across the state.

 

The scrutiny now coming from San Bernardino County's Public Integrity Unit, which looks out for public corruption, is long overdue.

http://www.sbsun.com/opinions/ci_5796513

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