[Water_news] 5. DWR'S CALIFORNIA WATER NEWS: AGENCIES, PROGRAMS, PEOPLE - 8/27/08

Department of Water Resources

California Water News

A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment

 

August 27, 2008

 

5. Agencies, Programs, People –

 

 

Energy policy linked to Delta’s Future: His Voice writer says the way we use energy will affect the Delta, and it is our job to find out how.

The Tracy Press- 8/26/08

 

WATER AUTHORITY: Tax deal benefits rural area: White Pine property crucial to large groundwater project
Las Vegas Review- Journal- 8/27/08

 

Vegas water board offers to pay White Pine County

The Fresno Bee- 8/27/08

 

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Energy policy linked to Delta’s Future: His Voice writer says the way we use energy will affect the Delta, and it is our job to find out how.

The Tracy Press- 8/26/08

By Wes Rolley

 

 

Between now and November, we will hear more than we want about energy and the Delta. While seemingly very different issues, they have a lot in common — not the least being that the only problem most politicians are trying to solve is the one of staying in office.

 

The fate of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and U.S. energy policy are part of the discussion of global warming. Both Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain are trying to appease voters by saying that they will lower the price of gasoline. Yet, if either is successful, the result may be catastrophic for the Delta. The more gasoline we burn, the more we make greenhouse gases. That, ultimately, will raise ocean levels, change climate, extend our drought and threaten the livelihood of all who make their living from the waters of the Delta.

 

Finding the right solution for both will not be easy, but finding the wrong one for energy use may mean that the Delta is doomed, no matter what we do. It is all going to depend on what problem we are trying to solve.

 

The recent Public Policy Institute of California study had mixed reviews, including one by the Tracy Press (Our Voice, July 23, “More info needed for new look at Delta canal”).

 

The PPIC asked, “Which water management strategies best meet the goals of environmental sustainability and water supply reliability?”

 

The way the question was framed left the only solution to be the construction of a peripheral canal, a solution that will change the Delta forever.

 

Had the PPIC asked how we might ensure that our children, until the seventh generation, could have the life that we now enjoy, the answer would surely have been different. It may actually have said that the most important thing we can do is to first address our energy use.

 

Wes Rolley describes himself as an artist and concerned citizen in Morgan Hill. He writes often about the Delta.#

http://tracypress.com/content/view/15601/2244/

 

 

 

WATER AUTHORITY: Tax deal benefits rural area: White Pine property crucial to large groundwater project
Las Vegas Review- Journal- 8/27/08
By HENRY BREAN

After more than a year of talks, the Southern Nevada Water Authority has reached an agreement to pay property taxes and other levies associated with its ranch property in White Pine County.

 

Though it is exempt from such taxes, the authority agreed to pay $156,400 this year and an additional $45,000 annually in what amounts to a good-will gesture toward the cash-strapped rural county.

 

Since 2006, the authority has acquired seven ranches and more than 23,000 acres in White Pine County to support the agency's plan to tap groundwater across eastern Nevada.

 

All of the property is located in Spring Valley, which authority officials consider the "anchor basin" for the groundwater project.

 

Water authority board members signed off on the in-lieu payments last week, roughly 14 months after General Manager Pat Mulroy first floated the idea.

 

The White Pine County Commission is scheduled to consider the agreement today.

 

Dick Wimmer, deputy general manager for the water authority, said he would be surprised if the deal failed to go through.

 

"They want to be compensated for these things, and we're willing to do it. We're not asking for anything else," Wimmer said. "This is so they don't get harmed."

 

Just don't mistake an agreement on in-lieu payments as a county endorsement of the water authority's pipeline project.

 

County Commissioner RaLeene Makley, who served on the committee that negotiated the payments from the authority, said the county's stance against the water grab has not changed.

 

The agreement itself is very specific on that point, noting that by signing the document, the county and the authority "do not compromise or concede their respective positions on any other issue or in any other matter."

 

"I don't think we're going to have too many people disagree with this," Makley said of the agreement. "There are probably some people who think it (the payments) should be more, but taxes are what they are."

 

The initial payment of $156,400 includes $69,500 in property taxes that would have been assessed over the past three years and $76,900 in property transfer taxes that would have come due had a private entity bought the land instead. The remaining $10,000 is to cover any sales, use or privilege taxes the county might have collected from private farms or ranches on the property.

 

The authority has also agreed to make future payments of $10,000, plus whatever property taxes would have been owed, each year at the end of August.

 

Some county officials think the $10,000 figure should be more like $33,000, but Wimmer said the smaller number is based on the authority's current ranching operations in Spring Valley. "It wasn't taken out of thin air."

 

The agreement calls for the annual payments to increase if the authority buys more property or the assessed value goes up on the land it owns already.

 

White Pine County can certainly use the money. Since declaring a fiscal emergency in 2005, the county's finances have been under the control of the Nevada Department of Taxation.

 

The authority's initial payment of $156,400 represents just over 1 percent of the county's general fund budget of about $11.6 million.

 

It took two negotiating sessions -- one in May, the other early this month -- to hammer out the details of the in-lieu payment agreement.

 

"These were very good discussions. They were very open, and they were very honest," Wimmer said.

 

The prospect of the authority buying up ranch land and taking it off the tax rolls has been "a real issue" with county residents for a long time, he said, but he thinks this agreement should put all that to rest.

 

"It just recognizes their concerns," Wimmer said. "It's fair, and it's the right thing to do."#

http://www.lvrj.com/news/27521319.html

 

 

 

Vegas water board offers to pay White Pine County

The Fresno Bee- 8/27/08

 

Lawmakers in White Pine County are considering whether to accept in-lieu payments from the Southern Nevada Water Authority for ranches the authority owns in east-central Nevada.

 

The Las Vegas-based water authority is exempt from taxes, but officials say they've agreed after more than a year of negotiations to pay $156,400 this year and $45,000 annually in what amount to goodwill payments to the cash-strapped rural county.

 

White Pine County commissioners were due to consider the deal Wednesday. The water authority board signed off on the proposal last week, some 14 months after General Manager Pat Mulroy first floated the idea.

 

The water authority has since 2006 acquired seven ranches and more than 23,000 acres in White Pine County, with water rights, to support a plan to pump groundwater and pipe it some 250 miles to Las Vegas.

 

White Pine County Commissioner RaLeene Makley, who helped negotiate the payments, said her county remained opposed to a water authority pump-and-pipe proposal. But she said she expected approval for the deal.

 

The agreement specifies that White Pine County and the Southern Nevada Water Authority "do not compromise or concede their respective positions on any other issue."

 

The initial $156,400 represents just over 1 percent of the general fund budget of about $11.6 million for White Pine County, which declared a fiscal emergency in 2005 and remains under state Department of Taxation control.

 

The water district ranches are in Spring Valley, which authority officials see as the start point for the $2 billion-plus pipeline project.

The water authority hopes to begin delivering rural groundwater to Las Vegas by 2015, eventually supplying more than 230,000 homes. The agency now supplies about 400,000 customers.

 

The Las Vegas area currently gets almost all its water from the drought-stricken Lake Mead reservoir on the Colorado River.#

http://www.fresnobee.com/552/story/826364.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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