[Water_news] 1. DWR'S CALIFORNIA WATER NEWS - Top Item for 6/12/07

Department of Water Resources

California Water News

A daily compilation for DWR personnel of significant news articles and comment

 

June 12, 2007

 

1.  Top Item -

 

 

Sacramento water rights are targeted

El Dorado agency takes a step to gain control

Sacramento Bee – 6/12/07

By Cathy Locke – Staff Writer

 

While saying they would prefer negotiation to litigation, El Dorado Irrigation District board members Monday agreed to join with a coalition in a potential battle with the city of Sacramento over water rights.

 

Under a cost-sharing agreement with three other agencies, the irrigation district would assume more than 40 percent of an initial $3.9 million cost for environmental studies, permit fees and legal counsel to wrest rights to water that originates in El Dorado County but currently is assigned to Sacramento.

Negotiations have occurred in closed sessions for two or three years, said director George Wheeldon.

 

"This is the first shot across the bow, as far as I'm concerned," he said, in supporting the cost-sharing agreement.

 

Under a 2005 "cooperation agreement" between the El Dorado Water and Power Authority and the Sacramento Municipal Utility District, El Dorado County water purveyors were granted use of SMUD's upper American River facilities for water delivery and drought storage.

 

But the water and power authority -- consisting of the irrigation district, El Dorado County, El Dorado County Water Agency and the Georgetown Divide Public Utility District -- needs water rights to take advantage of the delivery and storage capacity.

 

Under the agreement, El Dorado County water purveyors could use SMUD facilities to deliver 30,000 acre-feet of water annually through 2025, after which the total could be increased to 40,000 acre-feet per year.

 

An acre-foot is the amount of water that will cover an area of one acre to a depth of one foot.

 

In 1957, SMUD assigned to Sacramento the right to water that flows through its system of 11 reservoirs and eight hydroelectric plants on the upper American River. But county and water district officials say the state contract granting Sacramento rights to El Dorado County water specifies that those rights may be taken back at such time as El Dorado County needs the water.

 

Convincing the state Water Resources Control Board the water is needed could be a complicated and expensive process, however, involving an application for area-of-origin water rights.

 

An alternative, district board members said, would be to negotiate an agreement to purchase unused water from the city of Sacramento. They suggest the city could use the revenues to offset the cost of retrofitting homes with water meters.

 

Director George Osborne said discussions with Sacramento officials have not been fruitful to date, but he suggested the authority exhaust that avenue before spending the $400,000 needed just to file the state application.

 

"I would hope that the city would take to heart that it's better for everybody to sit down and come to a resolution," Osborne said.

 

But as with all things related to water in California, it might not be that simple.

 

Gary Reents, Sacramento's director of utilities, said in a telephone interview that El Dorado officials should be talking to the federal Bureau of Reclamation.

Sacramento's contract, he said, stipulates that any of the 235,000 acre-feet of water from the Upper American River Project that the city does not use reverts to the bureau.

 

"I couldn't sell them water, no matter what," Reents said, though he added that the city is willing to work with El Dorado County through the Water Forum, a group that seeks to resolve regional water conflicts.

 

Bill Hetland, the water and power authority's executive director and general manager of the El Dorado County Water Agency, said in a telephone interview that both Sacramento and the bureau have acknowledged that El Dorado County is entitled to water within its watershed. But, he said, the city maintains any excess water belongs to the Bureau of Reclamation, and the bureau says it is overcommitted to Central Valley Project users.

 

Negotiations will go on, Hetland said, but the matter likely will have to be decided by the Water Resources Control Board.

 

El Dorado Irrigation District director John Fraser urged fellow board members Monday to endorse the cost-sharing agreement without reservation, noting that the district would be the prime beneficiary of the water rights.

 

"This district is the major actor in this drama, and we've got to move forward to show that we are serious," he said.#

http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/217603.html