[Water_news] 5. DWR'S CALIFORNIA WATER NEWS: AGENCIES, PROGRAMS, PEOPLE - 8/5/08

Department of Water Resources

California Water News

A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment

 

August 5, 2008

 

5. Agencies, Programs, People –

 

 

Aguirre questions Sanders' 'behavior' on water plans: Mayor's 'close ties' to company cited

San Diego Union Tribune- 8/5/08

 

Lake Powell rebounds: Wettest winter in a decade raises water level to 6-year high

The Arizona Republic- 8/5/08

 

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Aguirre questions Sanders' 'behavior' on water plans: Mayor's 'close ties' to company cited

San Diego Union Tribune- 8/5/08

By Matthew T. Hall, STAFF WRITER

 

SAN DIEGO – City Attorney Michael Aguirre questioned Mayor Jerry Sanders' “behavior” toward two plans to boost San Diego's water supply yesterday, choosing his words carefully more than a year after calling the mayor corrupt.

Aguirre suggested Sanders is embracing one conservation approach over another inappropriately, delaying the City Council's plans to pursue a pilot project to turn treated wastewater into drinking water because of “close ties” to a company touting an alternate technology to desalinate ocean water.

 

Poseidon Resources will appear before the California Coastal Commission tomorrow seeking approval to build a plant in Carlsbad to desalinate 50 million gallons of ocean water a day. Sanders called it “a critical project for our region” last week at a news conference with six other local mayors.

 

Aguirre's three-page memo to Sanders yesterday begins, “I am writing to ask that you please explain your office's behavior,” and later says it “appears questionable in light of the direction given by City Council.”

 

Aguirre concludes, “You cannot take on the appearance of lobbying for private firms, such as Poseidon.”

 

He notes a series of connections between Sanders and Poseidon:

 

Three Poseidon officers each contributed $300 to Sanders' first election campaign.

 

Sanders' campaign manager, Tom Shepard, is president of a firm that lobbies for Poseidon, and a Sanders campaign staffer once employed by Shepard now works for Poseidon.

 

A city staff e-mail questioning the council's water project was copied to Shepard by a Sanders aide.

 

Sanders acknowledged yesterday that he has resisted the idea of recycled wastewater, a project defined by critics as toilet-to-tap. But he said he is “still moving it forward” per the council's wishes.

 

Sanders said that his relationship with Poseidon revolves around “good sound water policy in the county of San Diego” and that he and Shepard haven't discussed Poseidon but that if they did, there wouldn't be anything wrong with that because the company isn't doing business in the city.

 

“I have looked far and wide, and I have not found a single campaign consultant that would drop every single client they have to work with me,” Sanders said.

 

The council voted to move ahead on a “demonstration project” at the North City Water Reclamation Plant last year, overriding a Sanders veto, but cost is now an issue. Sanders wants to raise sewer rates to fund the council-approved project, but Aguirre says that's unnecessary.

 

Aguirre and Sanders have sparred repeatedly over the years, most notably in June 2007, when Aguirre called the mayor corrupt for his role in a campaign contributor's construction of an office tower in Kearny Mesa whose height exceeded federal safety regulations. State Attorney General Jerry Brown cleared Sanders, at the mayor's request. #

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20080805-9999-1m5water.html

 

 

 

Lake Powell rebounds: Wettest winter in a decade raises water level to 6-year high

The Arizona Republic- 8/5/08

By Shaun McKinnon

 

Lake Powell has reached its highest level in six years, a sign that the Colorado River is recovering from one of the worst dry spells on record.

 

The giant reservoir hit its peak for the year late last month, 45 feet higher than it was in March before the river swelled with melted snow from the wettest winter on the Colorado watershed in a decade.

 

The runoff boosted water storage for Arizona and the other states that rely on the Colorado River and improved conditions for boaters and anglers, many of whom had stayed away from the drought-stricken lake since its decline.

 

The higher water levels also triggered new water-management rules for Lake Powell and downstream sibling Lake Mead, less than half a year after the seven river states agreed on a plan to operate the two reservoirs as one storage system.

 

"I don't think anyone anticipated that within months of them signing (the plan), it would be in effect," said Barry Wirth, a spokesman for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation in Salt Lake City. The agency oversees water storage on the Colorado.

 

The influx of water also reopened Castle Rock cut, a shortcut from Wahweap Marina just above Glen Canyon Dam to Padre Bay and the lake's wide-open upper reaches.

 

Boaters had been shunted through a 12-mile detour since 2003, when falling water levels made the shortcut impassible.

 

"There were a lot of people waiting for the Castle Rock cut to be reopened," said Steve Ward, public-relations director for Lake Powell Resorts and Marinas. "I saw the excitement building back in January and February, when a lot of us figured this was the year. As soon as it opened, our visitation took a big jump."

 

Drought conditions struck Lake Powell, which straddles the Arizona-Utah line, near the end of 1999.

 

Water levels dropped steadily as runoff into the river fell below average over the next six years.

 

By 2005, the reservoir shrank to one-third of capacity, the lowest point since it began to fill in 1963.

 

Runoff this year neared 110 percent of the long-term average, enough to push Powell's water levels to their highest since August 2002.

 

It is now 63 percent full, still 67 feet below the full mark.

 

Under the new operating guidelines, when Lake Powell reaches target levels, the bureau will release water into Lake Mead until it reaches its own target. The process is called equalization, and it is meant to share the benefits of the river's flow.

 

Bureau officials expect Lake Mead to reach its target level this fall.

 

Lake Powell was built to store water on behalf of Utah, Wyoming, Colorado and New Mexico, while Lake Mead stores water for Arizona, Nevada and California.

 

The amount of water in Lake Mead is used to trigger restrictions, which is why the three lower-river states sought operating rules that would move water downstream from Lake Powell.

 

If a shortage was declared, Arizona would absorb the most losses and the first water cutoff would come from the Central Arizona Project Canal, which serves Phoenix and Tucson. #

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/2008/08/05/20080805drought-lake0805.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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