[Water_news] 1. DWR'S CALIFORNIA WATER NEWS - Top Items for 1/17/08

Department of Water Resources

California Water News

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

 

January 17, 2008

 

1.  Top Items

 

Mayors meet to discuss water crisis; Fail to agree on letter to Legislature backing 'peripheral canal' bond - North County Times

 

Sanders convenes regional water summit - San Diego Union Tribune

 

 

Mayors meet to discuss water crisis; Fail to agree on letter to Legislature backing 'peripheral canal' bond

North County Times – 1/17/08

By Gig Conaughton, staff writer

 

SAN DIEGO -- Mayors and representatives from 10 Southern California cities discussed -- but failed to sign -- a letter Wednesday lobbying the state to float a bond measure that would fix Northern California's fragile "bay delta" and keep water flowing south.

Water officials at the meeting said that means building a canal through or around the Sacramento-San Joaquin delta, similar to the controversial "peripheral canal" that state voters dismissed in 1982.

 

Proponents say such a canal would separate drinking water supplies in the delta -- often referred to as the bay delta -- from failing levees vulnerable to earthquakes, and from endangered fish that have prompted courts to cut pumping to Southern California this year.

 

Water officials say the delta problems, combined with widespread drought in the West, have California perched on the edge of a looming water-supply crisis.

San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders called for Wednesday's "water summit" at the University of San Diego's Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace and Justice. Sanders said he was not disappointed that the letter backing the bond didn't get signed.

"I think most people will (eventually) sign it," Sanders said. "It's very hard to get mayors to sign something without their staff looking at it first."

Several officials at the meeting suggested that Southern Californians still could do a much better job of cutting water use -- even though water officials said the region was using roughly the same amount of water as it used in 1991 despite population increases.

In addition to lobbying for "delta conveyance improvements," the letter said cities should be encouraging conservation, and pushing for more water-supply storage solutions such as new reservoirs and dams.

Jeff Kightlinger, general manager of the Los Angeles-based Metropolitan Water District -- Southern California's main water supplier -- said that state lawmakers were used to water agencies pushing for action in the delta. He said mayors and cities might have better luck getting Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Legislature's attention.

Wednesday's summit included presentations about the state's water supplies and problems in the delta by Kightlinger and Curt Schmutte of the state's Department of Water Resources.

Jim Bond, an Encinitas councilman and that city's longtime representative on the San Diego County Water Authority, said the gathering was a good start in a dialogue to get cities to push for delta fixes.

"Hopefully this is a pebble in the pond," he said, "and more folks will get involved."

Significantly, while Wednesday's meeting included mayors from San Diego County cities, including Escondido's Lori Holt-Pfeiler, Carlsbad's Claude "Bud" Lewis and Chula Vista's Cheryl Cox, it also included officials from Los Angeles, Long Beach and Huntington Beach.

The cities of Los Angeles and San Diego are Southern California's two largest, and they have often sparred over water issues in the past.

Los Angeles Deputy Mayor Nancy Sutley said residents should be excited by the prospect of the two cities working together.

Long Beach Mayor Bob Foster said he thought the proposed letter addressed too many subjects.

When questioned, Kightlinger said state lawmakers have been unable to agree and find solutions because they're torn over where to build dams and reservoirs, and who should pay for them, whether a delta canal was a good idea, and what did it mean to "environmentally fix" the delta.

Foster said, "I think if those are the three issues, let's concentrate on those and figure out if we can find a way to solve those issues rather than complicate it with anything else."

However, Foster also said that Southern California had to do a better job of conserving water -- and that creating rates that penalized overuse was a way to do that.

Sanders, meanwhile, said he hoped to create a statewide "mayors summit" on the delta issue, and had already contacted the city of San Jose about moving forward on that. #

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2008/01/17/news/top_stories/12_04_301_16_08.txt

 

 

Sanders convenes regional water summit

San Diego Union Tribune – 1/16/08

 

SAN DIEGO – Mayor Jerry Sanders convened a regional summit on water issues in San Diego Wednesday, a week after discussing it in his high-profile State of the City address.

 

Mayors from Long Beach and Huntington Beach joined officials from Los Angeles and across San Diego County to seek consensus on how best to lobby Sacramento as California's drought and demand for water continue unabated.

 

In last week's speech, Sanders said, “We must be a unified voice to let the governor and the legislature know we need a meaningful strategy that will include bringing water to our region.”

 

At the University of San Diego meeting Wednesday, he asked Southern California city leaders to sign and send to Sacramento a letter signaling their collective support for continued conservation and a water bond that could shore up supply, among other items. #

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20080116-1947-bn16sanders.html

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