[Water_news] 2. DWR'S CALIFORNIA WATER NEWS: SUPPLY - 4/18/08

Department of Water Resources

California Water News

A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment 

 

April 18, 2008

 

2. Supply -

 

 

Southeast L.A. County Water Agency Sues over MWD Drought Plan

The Central Basin district says the new system will slight its mostly lower-income Latino clients and favor the affluent.

Los Angeles Times – 4/18/08

By Deborah Schoch, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer  

 

An agency that supplies water to 2 million residents of southeast Los Angeles County has filed suit to overturn a new Southern California drought plan, saying it inequitably allocates water and "robs from the poor to pay the cost of new development in more affluent areas."

The Los Angeles County Superior Court lawsuit brought by the Commerce-based Central Basin Municipal Water District challenges the water allocation plan approved Feb. 12 by the board of directors of the Metropolitan Water District. The MWD is a public agency that distributes imported water to 18 million people from Ventura County to the Mexican border.

During past droughts, the agency has cut water deliveries across the board. The new drought plan, however, sets a formula for determining how imported water would be divided among the region's cities if current water shortages worsened.

Cities could receive more water if, for instance, they were in growing counties, depended heavily on MWD water or suddenly lost local water supplies. That formula would take precedence over long-standing water rights held by older cities.

The lawsuit contends that the plan, championed by Los Angeles, San Diego and Inland Empire cities, unfairly penalizes the Central Basin's lower-income, largely Latino communities while benefiting growing inland areas.

The plan would deliver water unfairly "by giving 'cheap' water to growing, more affluent water districts and communities, at the expense of poorer water districts and communities," the complaint says.

It also contends that the MWD board did not perform required state environmental reviews and ignored water rights that favor the older southeast L.A. County cities.

Jeff Kightlinger, MWD general manager, said Thursday that the plan was fair.

"It treats people in Beverly Hills the same way it treats people in Compton, Riverside, Orange County," he said. "It accounted for population changes to make sure that at the grass-roots level, the retail level, we treated people equally."

Kightlinger also defended his staff's decision that the plan was exempt from the state Environmental Quality Act, which can require environmental impact reviews for projects.

"If you did an EIR every time you updated a plan, then you would never proceed," he said.

Los Angeles Department of Water and Power spokesman Joe Ramallo said in an e-mail, "We understand the need for the water allocation plan, view it as equitable and do not intend to join in the legal challenge."

The MWD, the state's largest water district, imports water from the Colorado River and Northern California and sells it to 26 member agencies, which use it to supplement local groundwater supplies.

Water supplies to Southern California have ebbed in recent years because of an ongoing drought in the Colorado River Basin, last year's dry weather and sharp cuts in water from the north prompted by a court order protecting the delta smelt in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.

So far this year, that order has reduced water flowing south by 30%, MWD officials said Thursday.

The MWD relies heavily on water stored in reservoirs around the state, but those reserves stand at only 38% of normal.

Thursday, the agency issued its first-ever call for reduced landscape irrigation, asking residents to cut outdoor watering at least one day a week.

Kightlinger said the new drought plan would not be used this year "unless something dramatically shifted."

However, local water managers fear that a federal court decision issued Wednesday, intended to protect endangered salmon and steelhead, could further slash water deliveries, although details will not be known until after more court hearings. This year's snowpack is smaller than expected, and local rainfall virtually dried up in March.

Central Basin purchases water from the MWD to serve 24 cities as well as other communities. Its board voted last month to mount a legal challenge to the plan.#

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-water18apr18,1,7175600.story

 

Spring runoff to boost Lake Powell level

Reservoir will be up 50 feet, but more than usual will be released

The Salt Lake Tribune – 4/18/08

By Patty Henetz

 

Easy come, easy go.

    Spring runoff into Lake Powell should be about 120 percent of average, raising the lake's level 50 feet this summer, a Utah water official said Wednesday.
    But because a November agreement between Colorado River states for managing water shortages also manages water surpluses, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation says about 700,000 acre-feet more than usual will be released downstream from Lake Powell into Lake Mead.

    "I bring you good news today," Utah Division of Water Resources director Dennis Strong told lawmakers during a meeting of the Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment interim committee.

    Precipitation and snowpack from the Oct. 1 start of the water year is mostly at or above average across the state, Strong said. As of April 1, statewide basin reservoir storage was 60 percent of average and expected to reach 80 percent of normal with the runoff - even though Bear Lake will be about one-third full.
    Weather and water experts are watching conditions for possible flooding. Strong cautioned the legislators that because it has been so long since spring runoff hit average, "normal runoff could look like a flood."

    Under the Colorado Compact, 8.3 million acre-feet of water must pass through Lee's Ferry every year, or 83 million acre-feet during a 10-year period. The water serves California, Arizona and Nevada.

    Last fall, U.S. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne signed an interim agreement good through 2025 that aims to keep the West's two largest storage reservoirs roughly equal.

    The Bureau of Reclamation estimates a release of 653,000 acre feet from Powell to Mead, though that amount can be adjusted if runoff and river flows merit.

    The total 8.8 million acre-feet estimate includes water released during a 60-hour experiment that aimed to restore beaches and habitat downstream of Glen Canyon Dam.

    An acre-foot of water is enough for two Nevada or Arizona average households and enough for one household in Utah, where per-capita water use is higher than those in neighboring states.#

http://www.sltrib.com/ci_8969121