A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment
February 7, 2008
2. Supply
TEST WELLS:
Bureaucratic tussling centers on county wells - Inside Bay Area
Deal creates shared facilities near Seven Oaks Dam, more water stored - Riverside Press Enterprise
DWR uses variety of factors to determine water releases - Oroville Mercury Register
WATER RIGHTS ISSUES:
TEST WELLS:
Bureaucratic tussling centers on county wells
Inside Bay Area – 2/7/08
By Julia Scott, staff writer
Water has been so scarce for customers of the Montara Water and Sanitary District, in fact, that new water connections have been prohibited for the last 30 years.
That may change very soon. This week, the water district began drilling a 600-foot test well in
That's not the only good piece of news for beleaguered locals, for whom a good water connection is essential to maintaining property values. Some residents have resorted to digging their own wells, only to watch water pressure fluctuate and sometimes even fail.
On Dec. 19, a Santa Clara County Superior Court judge granted the Montara Water and Sanitary District immediate possession of three wells under the Half Moon Bay Airport, over the objections of
The water district felt the need to initiate eminent domain proceedings against the county to ensure guaranteed access to the wells, which supply about 60 percent of the district's water to customers.
The wells run along a grassy strip near the outer boundary of the airport parallel to Highway 1. They are sunk deep into the bowl of a large coastal aquifer that runs from the hills down to the sea.
In 2003, the water district discovered that the permit under which it had leased the land since 1943 could be canceled on six months' notice. That caused the California Department of Health Services to deny the district a $5 million loan to finance several badly needed upgrades. Eventually, the water agency concluded the only solution was to own the wells.
George Irving, general manager for the Montara Water and Sanitary District, called the judge's transfer of title a victory.
"This means that 60 percent of our water supply is safe forever," he said.
Not so fast, according to Chief Deputy County Counsel Deborah Penny Bennett. The Santa Clara County Superior Court still needs to rule on whether the water district has the right to take land by eminent domain that the county claims is actually controlled by the FAA.
"The FAA regulates the property, and the predecessor to the FAA transferred the property to the county with the condition that it could only be used for airport purposes," Bennett said. "We still believe that the county cannot give it away without running the risk that the federal government can take it back."
The county's argument was dealt a blow when the Superior Court ruled that the FAA was not a necessary party to the litigation, which prevented the case from being heard in federal court, as the county would have wished. The case was moved from San Mateo County Superior Court to Santa Clara County Superior Court at the request of the water district.
No trial date has been set, although the parties will begin mediation talks in the next two months.
If they had their way, the water district would use very little of the well water drawn from the aquifer under the airport. It's contaminated with nitrates and tricresyl phosphates. The latter come from a gasoline additive old airplanes once used.
"The airport water requires more treatment, and it's farther from storage. It has a higher per-unit cost to run the electrical pumps. It's not as good a water as the Alta Vista water," said
Once it obtains a permit from the California Coastal Commission, the Alta Vista well has the potential to pump 150 gallons a minute, or 6.5 million gallons a month from its depths. If the new test well the water district is drilling in
Deal creates shared facilities near Seven Oaks Dam, more water stored
Riverside Press
By Jennifer Bowles, staff writer
Efforts to capture more water from the Santa Ana River took a step forward Wednesday when Inland agencies agreed to share recharge basins below the Seven Oaks Dam near Highland to allow them to store more water underground.
The deal is part of a larger effort to drought-proof the Inland region and make it less dependent on imported supplies that are gripped by drought and legal restrictions.
Under the agreement, 65 acres of recharge basins -- ponds that collect water that then percolates into aquifers - - owned and operated by Redlands-based San Bernardino Valley Water Conservation District would be used by the San Bernardino Valley Water Municipal Water District and Riverside-based Western Municipal Water District, which serves the western half of Western Riverside County.
The deal, however, hinges on the State Water Resources Control Board approving rights of the two water agencies for the additional water that would collect behind the dam. Spokeswoman Kathie Smith said the board should vote on those permits by June. The permit process started in 1991.
Environmental groups had also asked the board to consider saving some river water for the endangered species that live below the dam and require occasional flooding to maintain their habitat. The
"That was something the state board was wrestling with ... how to ensure that the resources were not shortchanged or impacted by" the water districts' request, said Ileene Anderson, ecologist with the Center for Biological Diversity.
Under the agreement signed Wednesday in
John Rossi, general manager of Western Municipal, said eventually more recharge basins would be constructed, but this agreement allows the water-savings to start sooner.
Rossi said the agencies wanted to come to an agreement to show the state water board that they have the ability to do something with the water.
"We'd rather store it for another day than see it go out to the ocean," Rossi said. #
http://www.pe.com/localnews/inland/stories/PE_News_Local_C_water07.412d26a.html
DWR uses variety of factors to determine water releases
Oroville Mercury Register – 2/6/08
By Mary Weston, staff writer
When storms are forecast, California Department of Water Resources hydrologists like Tracy Pettit study precipitation tables, consider water storage rules and use formulas to calculate how much water should be released from the Lake Oroville Dam.
How much water DWR releases into the Feather River from
Pettit, of the DWR Division of Operations and Maintenance, said the U.S. Corps of Engineers Flood Control Plan outlines how much flood space has to be retained in the lake to hold various amounts of runoff.
"The wetter it is, the less water we can store,' Pettit said. "The dryer it is the more water we can store."
Flood watch runs from Sept. 15 to the end of June. During this potential flood season, DWR monitors how much water is stored in the dam compared with the Corps of Engineer's flood regulation rules for storage.
When the lake level (actual storage) is greater than the flood regulation rules for storage, water is released according to the flood regulation storage rules.
For example, when a storm is coming, Pettit would consider how much water is already in the lake, how much water is expected from rain—and/or from melted snow during a warm storm, and how much flood space will be needed.
She also considers how much water other agencies will be releasing into the Feather River, including in Yuba County and from Bullard's Bar, and she coordinates with other agencies such as the Corps of Engineers.
The expected amount of runoff from rain is calculated with a formula using the precipitation tables from the
So subtracting the maximum flood space of 750,000 acre feet from the maximum capacity of the reservoir of 3.5 million acre feet means the reservoir could retain a little more than 2.7 million acre feet during high runoff. In a dry part of the flood season, the storage could be increased to about 3.1 million acre feet.
When lake levels are low, such as the end of January when the lake was at about 1.3 million acre feet, no extra water is released except as required.
The Department of Fish and Game since 1983 has required minimum releases of 1,250 cfs into the
When lake levels do need to be reduced to provide flood space, the rate that water is released into the river depends on factors such as how much water is being released by other agencies.
"We have a lot of coordination during flood season," Pettit said. #
http://www.orovillemr.com/news/ci_8190411
WATER RIGHTS ISSUES:
Riverside Press
By Michael Perault, staff writer
City Council on Tuesday decided to suspend two contracts approved on a split vote last month. The contracts called for two consulting firms to study how the water department could finance reimbursement to the general fund and whether it would require a rate increase for water users.
Councilmen Mick Gallagher and Jerry Bean opposed the move to hire consultants to study the reimbursement initiative. Mayor Jon Harrison and council members Pat Gilbreath and Pete Aguilar voted in favor of the contracts but have since had a change of heart. On Tuesday, they voted to suspend the contracts.
That was welcome news to city resident Eric Fraser, who had criticized the reimbursement proposal and called it a "backdoor attempt" to generate revenue.
The city was considering the reimbursement because in 1926 its board of trustees, as the City Council was then known, authorized $525,000 in bonds to purchase Mill Creek water rights. Officials wanted to see whether the city water department, which provided the water to residents, could repay the city's general fund for its use of the water.
City Manager N. Enrique
Opponents called the plan an attempt to raise taxes without taxpayer approval. They claimed it would have forced property owners to pay again for water rights they already owned.
"The debt service for those bonds was paid for by each of the individual property owners within the service area of the utility," Fraser told council members Tuesday evening.
Gilbreath seconded a motion to cancel contracts with Fieldman, Rolapp & Associates to provide financial advice, and with Best Best & Krieger to provide bond counsel services. But she said a legal analysis of the reimbursement issue still is needed.
Consultants would have determined whether reimbursement could come from a sale of assets to the water utility through a bond issue, lease or other financing alternatives.
Bean said he worried such a proposal would diminish the public's trust in city leaders.
"It's obvious we do have needs in the city, and they have to be addressed by either finding traditional sources of revenue or perhaps going to voters for a tax," Bean said. "We have to come up with a solution on how to get the budget back on track." #
http://www.pe.com/localnews/inland/stories/PE_News_Local_B_breverse07.4251dcc.html
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