Department of Water Resources
A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment
August 12, 2008
5. Agencies, Programs, People –
Knock, knock--they're coming to take your softener!
Capitol Weekly- 8/11/08
Water talks surface for Inyo & L.A.
The Inyo Register- 8/9/08
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Knock, knock--they're coming to take your softener!
Capitol Weekly- 8/11/08
There's a threatening-looking man in a dark suit is at the door holding a very large plumber's wrench. "Knock, knock!" says the graphic. "Who's there?" "
This ominous web ad has been running on numerous
It's part of the late-stage battle over a water recycling bill that has been moving forward with bipartisan support.
AB 2270 by Assemblyman John Laird, D-Santa Cruz, would expand the targets set out in the Water Recycling Act of 1991.
It would also expand the powers of the Department of Water Resources and local water agencies to control what is going into the water system. This is where the opposition comes in. The bill "would authorize any local agency that maintains a community sewer system to take action to control residential salinity inputs, including those from water softeners."
Water softener systems use salts to remove minerals, mainly calcium and magnesium, which "harden" water. These systems run anywhere from a few hundred dollars to over $4,000 according to Gene Erbin, a lobbyist representing Culligan International Company with the firm Nielsen Merksamer. Erbin estimates between 10 and 15 percent of Californians households have these systems.
Hard water, Erbin said, reduces the life of appliances, causes buildup on sinks and showers, leaves dishes spotty when they come out of the dishwasher, can worsen skin conditions like eczema, and damages clothing when it's washed. It can even raise bills for heating water, because mineral-rich in hard water has a higher thermal mass than softer water.
The problem, Laird said, it the amount of salt water softeners are adding to the water supply. For instance, he said, without this bill, the city of
"One percent of water users are creating 10 percent of the salinity that 100 percent of us have to pay to clean up," Laird said.
"The current law gives water softeners a carve-out. It basically says you have to have studies that address every other salinity issue before you get to water softeners. This evens the playing field and allows this to be dealt with at the local level.
Nobody has proposed mandatory removal of water softeners. It requires compensation."
The ad campaign-which has also included full-page ads in newspapers-is part of a last-ditch effort to get Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to veto a bill that has been moving forward with strong bipartisan support, Laird said. AB 2270 got 51 voters in the Assembly, and 27 votes on the Senate Floor.
The Senate support included Dave Cogdill, R-Fresno, Bob Margett, R-Glendora, and five other Republicans. One thing they all had in common is they represent areas with heavy agriculture, Laird said. The California Farm Bureau Federation, along with other farmers' groups and 15 towns and cities in farming areas, form the backbone of support for the bill. Rising salinity in groundwater is one of the greatest threats to agriculture-and has been credited with turning many formerly productive parts of the
Erbin countered with a study from the city of
"Please tell us by the demonstrable failure in existing law," Erbin said. "Every time you flush your toilet, every time you brush your teeth, every time you take a shower, that's a residential input."
There is a potential technical solution out there, but it could be quite expensive. Typical water softener systems flush used salt into the sewer system in the middle of the night. "Portable exchange" systems, on the other hand, store the used salt for a technician to come periodically remove and replace. But portable exchange is far more expensive, Erbin said.
"If you said people in
Water talks surface for Inyo & L.A.
The Inyo Register- 8/9/08
By Mike Gervais, Register Staff
Discussions will get under way Monday at 1 p.m. with the quartlery meeting of the Inyo-L.A. Standing Committee, being held in the Board of Supervisors Room at the Inyo County Administrative Center at 224 N. Edwards St. in Independence.
Monday’s agenda includes talks about the Yellow-Billed Cuckoo habitat, groundwater at the
This meeting was rescheduled from June 16.
The Standing Committee will discuss the 2008-2009 Operations Plan for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power in the
The Inyo-L.A. Long Term Water Agreement provides that the LADWP prepare and present a draft Operations Plan to the county and allow staff to provide comments.
>From there the Operations Plan is turned over to the technical group, which will attempt to resolve any concerns on the part of the county and return the plan to the LADWP to make the appropriate revisions and implement the plan.
The Inyo County Water Department has already reviewed the draft plan and provided comments to the LADWP.
“The department’s analysis found that both the draft and final Operations Plans are consistent with the interim management plan and water agreement,” Inyo County Administrative Officer Kevin Carunchio said in his department report.
This year’s LADWP Operations Plan forecasts that runoff will be 86 percent of normal for the
This is the first time in several years that Inyo County has utilized the Drought Recovery Policy that provides for the Standing Committee to establish an annual operations plan. In the past Operations Plans have been approved as described in the Water Agreement,” Carunchio said.
The Standing Committee will also be discussing the possibility of pumping groundwater from beneath
The Inyo County Board of Supervisors does have an interim management plan for groundwater pumping in the
According to Inyo County Water Department Director Bob Harrington, LADWP has developed a request for proposals for professional services to perform a study that will produce recommendations for “realistic, economical and environmentally friendly use of groundwater under
The LADWP will report on the status of the RFP in preparation for selection of the consultant, possibly later this summer or in the fall.
The Standing Committee will also be discussing habitat for the Yellow-Billed Cuckoo in the Hogback and Baker Creek areas of
A group working on the Yellow-Billed Cuckoo project met on July 15 and retained a consultant, Earthworks, Inc., to assist with the project.
The Standing Committee will discuss the need to mitigate fire hazards to the
The Standing Committee will also be discussing the Blackrock Waterfowl management area flood acreage at its meeting on Monday.
At its meeting in January, the Standing Committee adopted a protocol for setting the annual flooded acreage for waterfowl.
That protocol provides that in runoff years with between 50 percent and 100 percent of normal runoff the flooded acreage will be proportional to the percent of normal runoff, which yields 430 flooded acres for the 2008-2009 runoff years.
The LADWP is also scheduled to provide reports on the Water Agreement and land releases and the
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