[Water_news] 2. DWR'S CALIFORNIA WATER NEWS: SUPPLY - 4/13/09

Department of Water Resources

California Water News

A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment 

 

April 13, 2009

 

2. Supply –

 

Carneros to vote on water study

The Napa Valley Register

 

Lake, reservoir levels still low despite rain

 

The Lake County News

 

Our View: Big Gulp: a refreshing change

The Pasadena Star-News

 

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Carneros to vote on water study

The Napa Valley Register – 4/11/09

By Bill Kisliuk

 

Property owners in Carneros are about to decide if they want to pay for a study to bring recycled water to their corner of southern Napa County.

Ballots have gone out to about 260 people who own property in the Los Carneros Water District, asking whether to fund what could be a six-year study of reclaimed water.

Under the proposal, property owners would face an assessment of $15 per acre in the first year of what could be a six-year assessment. The figure for future years will be determined later but cannot exceed $25 per acre per year.

The study would consider whether it makes sense to bring in reclaimed water from either the Napa Sanitation District, which has a supply of reclaimed water bordering the east side of the district, or the Sonoma County Water Agency, which borders it on the west.

Votes must be cast by Tuesday and may be cast at a meeting  at Carneros Elementary School Tuesday at 7 p.m.

“The purpose of the vote is to decide whether to fund feasibility and engineering studies to see whether it is worthwhile for the district to procure recycled water,” said Rob Paul, an attorney with the Napa County Counsel’s office who works with local water agencies.

 The district includes properties south of Highway 121 from the Sonoma County line to Stanly Lane.

It also includes some parcels north of the highway between Foster Road and Old Sonoma Road.

The study of reclaimed water could address some long-standing groundwater concerns in Carneros. While county officials say some private wells in Carneros produce a steady supply of water for irrigation, other parts of Carneros are relatively dry.

Carneros is home to thousands of acres of vineyards, planted mostly to chardonnay and pinot noir.

County officials have few monitoring wells in the area and the overall groundwater situation in Carneros is a mystery.

The vote comes as Napa County grapples with a groundwater deficiency problem northeast of Carneros, in the Millken-Sarco-Tulocay basin in and around Coombsville.

The county is weighing whether to go forward with a pipeline to deliver Napa Sanitation District reclaimed water to major users in the MST.

The project is fraught with political and financial obstacles, and property owners in the MST have not yet faced an assessment vote.#

 

http://www.napavalleyregister.com/articles/2009/04/11/news/local/doc49e01a07a51b0253399504.txt

 

Lake, reservoir levels still low despite rain

 

The Lake County News – 4/12/09 By Elizabeth Larson

LAKE COUNTY – Despite recent rains, Clear Lake is still well below seasonal averages, and officials plan to update the Lake County Board of Supervisors on the situation later this month. Rain in March and April has helped bolster the county's water supply, but Clear Lake still measured approximately 4.15 feet on the Rumsey gauge, according to a Saturday reading by the US Geological Survey. That compares to 7.02 feet Rumsey on April 11, 2008. Rumsey is Clear Lake's natural level which is maintained by the Grigsby Riffle, a rock sill at the confluence of Cache and Siegler creeks near Lower Lake, according to the Lake County Water Resources Division. The natural lake level is zero Rumsey, or 1318.256 feet. A full lake is 7.56 feet Rumsey. A review of lake levels shows that the current level is the lowest it's been since 1991, when the lake was under 4 feet Rumsey. “We're pretty low,” said Tom Smythe, a water engineer with the county. Yolo County Flood Control and Water Conservation District, which owns the right to Clear Lake, reported that the lake had 26,285 acre feet of water available to the district on Friday, down from 127,268 acre feet at this time last year. The lake was most recently releasing five cubic feet per second, down from 144 cubic feet per second released on April 10, 2008. The lake must measure above 3.22 feet Rumsey on May 1 for Yolo Flood to be able to draw from it during the summer irrigation season, according to the Water Resources Division. Indian Valley Reservoir's levels also are showing the impacts of the dry conditions. Yolo Flood's report showed the reservoir's storage was 48,289 acre feet on Friday, compared with 118,925 acre feet last year, and released 11 cubic feet per second as opposed to the 470 cubic feet per second being released the same day a year ago. The district reported there has been five inches less of precipitation at this point in the season. In February Water Resources and Special Districts Administrator Mark Dellinger took a resolution to the Board of Supervisors seeking voluntary water conservation from the local water and sewer districts it controls, as Lake County News has reported. The board approved the resolution, and also asked county staff to look at potential mandatory measures if the water conditions didn't improve. Smythe said he and Dellinger are scheduled to go to the Board of Supervisors later this month – possibly on April 21 – to give an update on the water situation. The water conditions locally are similar to those around the state. The state Department of Water Resources' latest snow survey showed the state's snowpack was 81 percent of normal in the Sierra Nevada mountains. “A below-average snowpack at this time of year, especially following two consecutive dry years is a cause for concern,” said Water Resources Director Lester Snow. The agency reported that the state's reservoirs also are extremely low. Lake Oroville, the principal storage reservoir for the State Water Project, recently was reported to be at 57 percent of capacity.    “Our most critical storage reservoirs remain low, and we face severe water supply problems in many parts of our state,” Snow said. “Californians must continue to save water at home and in their businesses.” A March 30 update the Department of Water Resources looked at precipitation around the state, and reported the Lake County area had 80 percent of its normal rainfall between Oct. 1, 2008, and Feb. 29.#

http://lakeconews.com/content/view/8145/764/

 

 

Our View: Big Gulp: a refreshing change

The Pasadena Star-News – 4/12/09

Editorial

Water is something people mostly fight about in the West, but a group of water suppliers serving 4 million customers in Southern California has put aside their differences and come up with a storage plan that makes great sense. They call it the Big Gulp.

 

That's not how they described it when they petitioned the court last week to create a new framework for making better use of underground storage capacity that is the equivalent to a billion dollars worth of reservoir. But despite the support of most water suppliers, the plan is not without controversy.

 

The agreement would affect areas known as the Central Basin and West Coast Basin, encompassing the ground underneath 43 cities and more than 4 million people, including La Habra Heights, La Mirada, Montebello, Monterey Park, Pico Rivera, Santa Fe Springs and Whittier.

 

Support for the plan comes from the cities of Los Angeles, Long Beach, Lakewood, Torrance, Compton and others; the Golden State Water Co. and other regulated water utilities; the Water Replenishment District that oversees underground water replenishment for the region; the Metropolitan Water District, which imports water for all of Southern California; and, most important from a policy and political point of view, the state Water Resources Department.

 

Politics has a lot to do with reasons this agreement wasn't reached decades ago. Some water agencies still are sitting on the fence. Two cities, Downey and Cerritos, have been opposed, at least up to now. The reasons have little to do with concerns of the average water consumer, and a lot to do with years-old mistrust of the Water Replenishment District and a passionate desire to hold onto local control.

 

But it's time for those ideas to dry up and blow away in the face of a prolonged drought, development that has outstripped water supplies, resultant rate increases and, we've got to say, good judgment. The Central and West Coast Groundwater Basin Judgment Amendments, as they are known, would expand on existing rules in a change that some say history will judge as second in importance only to the recent compact that assured Southern California continued access to Colorado River water.

 

The existing rules cover water rights and recordkeeping, both currently left to the supervision of the state's Department of Water Resources. The amendments would add storage approval, to be overseen by local water suppliers working with the WRD.

 

The amendments would create a sharing system allowing local water suppliers to make use of underground storage capacities vast enough to hold 450,000 acre feet of water. This means that in wet years, the agencies could load up on water at low rates to help tide the region over in dry years.

 

It also would facilitate the transfer of water and increased storage of reclaimed water. An individual agency could put water into storage now, but would have no way to lay claim to it later without the threat of litigation. So the space goes unused.

That made no difference 40 years ago, when the judgments first were adopted and water was more plentiful. But it isn't now.

 

Would any of the holdouts get hurt by the amendments? There are no harmful effects, and many advantages. Not only would the storage capacity smooth out the uneven supply of water and help reduce rates, it would, according to water economist David Sunding, increase the value of water rights from $1,988 to $3,349 an acre foot, or up to $944 million.

 

It's easy to see why a court could approve the amendments quickly, and hard to see why anyone should would want to delay them. It could also become a model for other agencies with water rights in other underground basins.

 

The semi-arid Southland can only benefit from the Big Gulp. #

 

http://www.pasadenastarnews.com/opinions/ci_12127552

 

 

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