Department of Water Resources
A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment
October 30, 2007
5. Agencies, Programs, People
NEW MANAGEMENT AT LADWP:
Editorial: A switch at the DWP; Proposed rate hikes make sense. More citizen oversight on how the money is spent would be good too - Los Angeles Times
Editorial: New DWP manager must work for the people - LA Daily News
NEVEDA IRRIGATION DISTRICT:
Under Continued Public Fire, NID Again Delays Approval of DS Canal Flume Replacement Project - YubaNet.com
NEW MANAGEMENT AT LADWP:
Editorial: A switch at the DWP; Proposed rate hikes make sense. More citizen oversight on how the money is spent would be good too
Boundless optimism was in ready supply Monday outside Department of Water and Power headquarters, where Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa announced that he was recommending attorney H. David Nahai to be the municipal utility's next top executive.
Both the mayor and Nahai spoke effusively of leading the city into an era of clean energy and sufficient water, just as the region is grappling with its driest year on record and new mandates to wean itself from the air-fouling
Ratepayers can be forgiven if they temper their own enthusiasm with a healthy dose of skepticism. It was just three years ago, after all, that the DWP insisted that it needed an 18% increase in water rates. Surprised by resistance from neighborhood leaders, managers decided that maybe they didn't need quite so much after all. They tidied up their spending practices, then came back with an 11% increase and put off a request for power rate hikes. The experience was only the most recent in a long history of DWP aloofness and arrogance, and those attitudes explain why many have a hard time trusting the agency.
Still, ratepayers must confront some basic truths about the cost of providing water and electricity. It's more expensive today than it used to be, in part because of the costs of improvements to make the air cleaner and water safer, and in part because of a historical fact of life about Los Angeles: The city was built in enormous spurts, the two largest of which came in the decades just before and just after World War II. Pipes, power poles, wires and other equipment were erected all at once -- and thus may wear out at once too. They soon must be replaced.
At the same time, the city is taking the necessary but costly steps to extricate itself from generating plants that pollute the air with soot and greenhouse gases. It also must repair some of the environmental damage in the
Under the circumstances, the rate increases the department has proposed are measured, and they are warranted. The City Council should approve them.
But residents must remain vigilant. The Board of Water and Power Commissioners was once made up of civic leaders whose job was to keep a wary eye on City Hall. Today, they are insiders, close to the mayor who appointed them and who is now "asking" them to hire Nahai -- their former board president and a man with very little management experience to be running a utility of the complexity of the DWP. We are relieved that Nahai must also face City Council confirmation.
Nahai, for his part, was on the right track when he called Monday for a committee of two Water and Power commissioners to oversee how the increased revenue is spent. But the suggestion doesn't go far enough. It makes sense that residents even further outside the city structure take that role. Just as citizen oversight panels pick over every penny of bond funds the city spends, a similar panel should oversee DWP spending. The rate hikes would give the agency the money it needs; the panel would ensure it is spent as promised. #
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-ed-dwp30oct30,0,4188560.story?coll=la-opinion-leftrail
Editorial: New DWP manager must work for the people
LA Daily News – 10/29/07
WITH the retirement of Ron Deaton as head of the Los Angeles Department and Water, it clears the path for a new direction for the utility. A direction, we hope, in which it is operated with the public's best interest in mind.
On Monday, Mayor Villaraigosa named H. David Nahai, a
In his announcement, the mayor called Nahai "uniquely qualified" for taking the DWP into the 21st century. It was a strange term considering Nahai has no experience running such a vast and complicated public agency. That said, an outsider might be just what the DWP needs.
For decades the utility has been run by bureaucrats and industry insiders who saw the DWP as an empire rather than a public asset owned by the people.
The result has been serious neglect of infrastructure, giveaways of billions of dollars to feed City Hall's political operations and the inflation of pay and benefits for DWP workers far beyond what most of them could earn in the private sector.
Nahai takes over the department at a tough time. To finally fix the DWP's water and power facilities, the utility is trying to pass yet another round of rate hikes - this time 9 percent for electricity and 6 percent for water - even as it pulls in a huge profit from ratepayers.
That plan has earned the DWP and city leaders much disdain from the community members who are not convinced the utility is being run efficiently.
Indeed, an outsider might finally put the utility on the road of working for the public.
But that starts with weaning City Hall of its addiction to ratepayers' money and cutting a new deal with the DWP union. #
http://www.dailynews.com/search/ci_7315473?IADID=Search-www.dailynews.com-www.dailynews.com
NEVEDA IRRIGATION DISTRICT:
Under Continued Public Fire, NID Again Delays Approval of DS Canal Flume Replacement Project
YubaNet.com – 10/30/07
By Susan Snider, YubaNet.com
On Monday October 22 Sue and Trevor Robbins received a phone call from NID assistant engineer Tonia Tabucchi Herrera.
She advised them that approval of the DS flume replacement project was scheduled for the water district's next board meeting, held in two days on October 24.
As landowners who stand to be significantly impacted by this project, the Robbins' were astonished by the last minute notice.
Facing review of numerous documents including a revised mitigated negative declaration, Sue and Trevor Robbins stood before NID board members on October 24 asking for a continuance of 30 days.
Other members of the public present at the board meeting expressed substantive concerns with not only the project itself, but also the environmental review process. Nick Wilcox pointed out that NID, according to one of the project mitigation measures, plans to conduct future plant surveys to assess possible impacts. Citing the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), a lead agency like NID should not be writing negative declarations on a project before a survey has been conducted.
"It's like the cart before the horse in terms of CEQA." Wilcox observed. "It is rather unusual to use promises of future surveys when writing negative declarations."
Director Nancy Weber also objected on similar lines, noting that without current plant surveys, it is impossible to accurately assess impacts.
Trevor Robbins also objected to the lack of any written document describing the scope of the project. Concerned that he has been misled too many times by NID, Robbins noted that a project of this magnitude warrants a definitive design description.
At the board meeting, Herrera noted that NID submitted a notice of intent with the local print newspaper, as well as a posting on the water district's website. However, at the same time, she admitted that letter notification to interested property owners like the Robbins, who have expressed concerns with the project from its inception, was an oversight.
Board President Scott Miller worried that, "staff have made us vulnerable" and that NID "didn't get it right" by failing to notify those people directly impacted by the project. Director John Drew echoed Miller's concerns, agreeing with the Robbins' that 30 days would be an appropriate time frame for extending public review.
NID Chief Engineer Gary King and Herrera both observed that such a continuance would delay construction scheduling. However, the board postponed its decision on the project and called for continued public hearings until November 28, when a special meeting is scheduled for 6 p.m.
According to NID's engineering department, the DS canal system's 8 remaining wooden flumes are deteriorating and pose safety and maintenance issues. In addition, engineers cite that flow in these flumes is restricted below NID's master plan levels. The proposed project would replace the wooden structures with pipes supported by steel structures.
Biggest Users, Smallest Revenues: You Do the Math
During a workshop in which NID Finance Manager Marie Owens made a preliminary 2008 budget presentation, board members and the public alike heard some rather startling numbers.
2008 projected figures for NID's water division indicate that while sales to treated water customers would represent less than 8 percent of all NID district water sales, they would generate nearly two-thirds of the water district's revenues.
By contrast, of the district's total water sold in 2008, nearly 93 percent is projected to go to raw water users. Yet revenues from these customers would represent roughly only 34 percent of all dollars generated to NID.
According to Owens, these figures are based on trend analysis and have not fluctuated much in recent years.
Of the three largest municipal raw water users during 2007, water sales to Placer County Water Agency topped the chart. Among sales to government agency raw water customers during the 2007 irrigation season, water demands by
During recent NID board meetings, discussion has centered around the fact that
In addition, questions arise as to why such a large gap in revenues exists between the district's smallest users--its treated water customers--and NID's biggest consumers, its raw water users.
NID is currently in the process of conducting a water rate study that will evaluate rate options and recommend rate adjustments to improve rate equity. According to Proposition 218, water rates cannot exceed the cost of providing service.
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