[Water_news] 5. DWR'S CALIFORNIA WATER NEWS: AGENCIES, PROGRAMS, PEOPLE - 4/22/08

Department of Water Resources

California Water News

A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment

 

April 22, 2008

 

5. Agencies, Programs, People -

 

 

Residents to oppose water fee increases -

Desert Sun Wire Service

 

Editorial

Earth Day - even for fish at sea -

San Francisco Chronicle

 

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Residents to oppose water fee increases

Desert Sun Wire Service – 4/21/08

 

Some land owners from La Quinta to the Salton Sea are expected to attend a public hearing Tuesday to protest a proposed fee increase on large water users.

The hearing will begin at 9 a.m. at Coachella Valley Water District headquarters.

Property owners in the area will be able to cast ballots on the proposed fee hike during the meeting, according to district assistant general manager Mark Beuhler.

The water district is proposing a $2.30 increase on its pumping fee for large water users in the area, according to Buehler, who said the increase was needed to help pay for a $24 million water replenishment facility near the Salton Sea.

The fee increase would affect customers such as farmers, country clubs with golf courses and cities that use more than 25 acre-feet of water a year, according to Jim Smith, Indio's director of public works, who said the city opposes the fee hike.

``We've seen no evidence this fee increase will benefit our residents or residents from the rest of the Coachella Valley. We believe the district is acting without authority,'' according to Smith, who added the district was looking for money to pay for a water replenishment project that primarily benefits residents closer to the Salton Sea.

``They've pre-selected certain folks to pay more,'' Smith said.

Smith said the fee hike was unconstitutional and in violation of Proposition 218, which requires voter approval for increased general taxes, assessments and certain user fees. He said affected land owners were not properly notified of the increase and Tuesday's meeting.

The water district is suing Indio, which provides water to its residents through the Indio Water Authority, for refusing to pay $130,000 in back fees for the replenishment project, according to Buehler, who said the city was ``wrong'' in its interpretation of what it should pay.

He did not want to comment further on the pending litigation.

Smith and Beuhler said if 50 percent plus one of the land owners at the meeting vote against the fee hike, the district will not be able to implement the increase.#

http://www.mydesert.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080421/NEWS01/80421057

 

Editorial

Earth Day - even for fish at sea

San Francisco Chronicle – 4/22/08

 

This year, the upbeat spirit of Earth Day seems to hang by a thread. Oil dominates the world economy, at record prices. President Bush proclaims a halt in greenhouse gas growth by 2025 but offers no steps or leadership to get there.

 

If the world - and especially this country - is trying to mend its ways, where is the evidence? This glum outlook fits the facts, but it's only a partial read of the future.

Take salmon. The fish is familiar table fare, but it's also a bellwether species for biologists. The fish bridges two different worlds - fresh and salt water - during its complicated three or four year lifespan.

In the ocean, warming temperatures and changes in currents can withhold food, starving the schools of silvery fish, which can do little to quickly adapt.

Six years ago, the number of adult salmon returning to the Sacramento River to spawn from the Pacific was more than 800,000. This past winter's returning run was only 68,000 with a change in food-bearing ocean flows to blame.

Can humans do much about these currents? If global warming - and its attributed effects on ocean surface temperatures - are reasons, then it will be hard to reverse the downward trend promptly. It may take decades to stabilize ocean currents while salmon populations tail off or vanish, even in a mainstay river like the Sacramento.

But there are still human-applied fixes that must be tried. In coastal rivers, logging or landscape-changing operations, farm diversions, and city water taps all leave a mark on salmon numbers. Though ocean conditions are a prime culprit for the fall-off in fish counts, delta water pumps, which supply municipal supplies and farms, are also under scrutiny. This heavy dipping diverts water - and river-reared fish - at crucial times during the migratory cycle.

Reworking the state's water supplies for the sake of salmon will be a huge undertaking. But the fish's fate should redirect attention on the long-running debate over safeguarding water supplies in the delta.

Last week a federal judge, for the second time, slammed federal water regulators for inadequate diversion plans. In the latest case, the judge indicated that neither the delta nor the salmon that live there were given enough thought in the business-as-usual siphoning of fresh water.

Before the vast ocean is blamed for a salmon die-off, there may be changes to make closer to home. That's an Earth Day message. #

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/04/22/EDOT1097TM.DTL