A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment
May 5, 2009
2. Supply –
DWP floats plan to pump 5,000 acre-feet less in 2009
The Inyo Register
The Ukiah Daily Journal
Water officials seek feedback on restrictions
The
Pico Rivera and Whittier to rely on voluntary cutbacks, see no need for water rationing
The
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DWP floats plan to pump 5,000 acre-feet less in 2009
The Inyo Register – 5/4/09
By Mike Gervais
Despite some related concerns,
The Board of Supervisors reviewed the LADWP Plan this week and is scheduled to discuss a controversial confidentiality notice on the cover sheet and pumping overages from last year at a May 4 technical group meeting.
The LADWP is expecting the spring runoff to be 68 percent of normal, a relatively dry year, but Inyo County Water Department Director Bob Harrington said that the proposed 63,100 acre-feet of water the LADWP is planning to pump in 2009 “complies with the pumping limitations of the Interim Management Plan.”
The figure proposed this year by LADWP is 5,049 acre-feet less than what it pumped last year – when runoff was 86 percent of normal – and 3,700 acre-feet less than what LADWP had proposed to pump for that runoff year.
The county did have a problem with the cover sheet on the runoff document that states the document is “confidential,” and not to be distributed to the public, or the Board of Supervisors.
“The individuals authorized to view this material are ICWD (Inyo County Water Department) staff reviewing and providing input to the LADWP’s Annual Owens Valley Report,” the cover sheet states.
“According to
First District Supervisor Linda Arcularius concurred, saying “people are interested in it and need to know about it.”
Second District Supervisor Susan Cash added that once the board has a document such as the Operations Report, it is public information.
The board directed Harrington to discuss the confidentiality clause with the LADWP at next week’s Technical Group meeting.
Harrington also mentioned Tuesday that the LADWP exceeded its plan for pumping in 2008-09 (66,800 acre-feet) by 1,349 acre-feet.
“The Water Department has analyzed the difference in water table elevations caused by this additional pumping, and it appears to have resulted in water levels 0.1-0.2 feet lower that would have occurred had the planned amount been pumped,” Harrington said.
One way to compensate for last year’s over-pumping would be to reduce the planned pumping for 2009-10 by an equal amount, “however, the proposed Operations Plan for 2009-10 is limited to pumping for in-valley uses, so further reductions in pumping may impact valley users,” Harrington said. “That might just come out of someone’s irrigation.”
Harrington recommended that the board do nothing about last year’s overage and “recognize that it is being used for in-valley uses.”
The board agreed that if the LADWP decides to reduce in-valley uses, it can require less pumping in light of last year’s overage.
The board directed Harrington to discuss the over-pumping and in-valley uses at the Tech Group meeting scheduled for Monday. From there, the LADWP will complete the final draft of the Operations Plan and release it to the public.#
www.inyoregister.com/content/view/120859/1/
The Ukiah Daily Journal – 5/5/09
By Zack Cinek
$30 million in vineyards at stake
How to apportion limited water supplies in
The question of what to do for the district's agricultural water customers was center of talk Monday.
"What we are here to do today is to discuss ag water," Don Butow, district president said.
A history of Redwood Valley Water's water rights is not as straight forward as having a certain amount of water with its name on it to pump from
Lack of surplus water recently meant that
"That is what we have been doing since last year, buying
This year's water shortage means the way that water is handled will change and the question is, how best can
"Water is going to be handled differently," Koehler said. "The water issues are changing and are going to change dramatically."
A concern is that wine grapes,
In
"Domestic comes first, it has to, that is the law," Koehler said. "It is not enough to keep your garden or your lawn."
When
Don Butow, Hal Voege, Merle Reuser and Granville Pool sit as the district's board of directors.
Delivering 50 percent less water while trying to make sure customers get enough water is the challenge, they explained.
News of "no water for agriculture" meant about 20 million gallons used in three days, leaving Redwood Valley's system running on near empty amounts of water, the district board members said.
Decades ago, the
"
http://www.ukiahdailyjournal.com/ci_12296983
Water officials seek feedback on restrictions
The
By Laura Drdek
CITY HALL — Glendale Water & Power officials on Monday said they would delay bringing a revised mandatory water conservation ordinance to the City Council by four weeks to get more public feedback, despite the looming July 1 cutback in regional wholesale water allocations.
General Manager Glenn Steiger said the city would try to implement the ordinance in August — one month after the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California reduces water shipments to its member agencies by 10%. That means the city will rely on voluntary cutbacks from a community that has managed an overall reduction of only 4% so far.
If
“Voluntary conservation, even with outreach, has not been a particularly effective approach,” said Pat Hayes, principal engineer for the utility.
Utilities statewide are facing reduced water allocations as a result of years of drought and tough environmental court decisions that have further constrained supplies. MWD reserves have also been dwindling.
The City Council last week authorized utility officials to move forward with revisions to the city’s water conservation rules that would impose strict restrictions on customers as a way to meet water-reduction goals.
In the draft regulations, customers would be billed at least twice the regular rate for any water used exceeding their individually assigned benchmarks, which would be calculated to be 10% less than their average consumption in 2006.
That provision got a lukewarm response from the council, which directed utility officials to get more public input.
On Monday, Assistant General Manager of Water Services Peter Kavounas offered the commission a look at multiple options to induce conservation. “The question isn’t about making an arbitrary decision,” he said. “The question is which arbitrary decision do we want to make?”
Some of the options on the table include increasing the fixed meter and commodity charges, or creating a second, more expensive tier of rates for customers who don’t cut back. There could be other tiered rate structures, officials said, but the most effective one is the proposal to charge customers based on how much they use compared to a base line.
Whatever the rate structure, Glendale Water & Power commissioners said the plan would have to be equitable, and contain provisions for people who have already been cutting back.
“I think we should come up with a solution that is the fairest,” Commissioner Ed Ebrahimian said.
Glendale Water & Power plans to host three community meetings, in addition to meeting with Realtors, who have raised concerns over proposed home resale provisions, and the Glendale Chamber of Commerce. Officials also plan to meet large-scale manufacturers and businesses.
“There’s some hard policy questions to be answered,” Kavounas said, such as how the size of a lot, or number of people per home, would affect each customer’s water allocation. “This is not an easy topic; there are no guarantees. Next year it could be 20% that needs to be cut down.”#
http://www.glendalenewspress.com/articles/2009/05/05/politics/gnp-water05.txt
Pico Rivera and Whittier to rely on voluntary cutbacks, see no need for water rationing
The
By Mike Sprague
Drought? What drought? Not here.
At least most of the water utilities won't be imposing any rationing on water use by their customers.
The reason is that the cities of
That's the massive agency that brings in water from the Colorado River and Northern California and then sells it in
The drought that has afflicted
"We're not doing mandatory conservation because it's not necessary," said David Pelser, director of public works. "The city has been good at living within the water rights allocated to us."
In part, it's because the city hasn't had a lot of growth in the area it serves - mostly the west and uptown areas of town - said Leon Yehuda, city engineer.
"We haven't had a huge increase in population unlike most other cities," Yehuda said, referring to the past 70 to 80 years.
The city also was helped by the purchase of additional water rights during the 1940s, '50s and '60s, Yehuda said.
Suburban Water Systems, which serves the eastern half of Whittier and all of
"Our local wells protect us from these types of issues," Presley said.
The same goes for Pico Water District and the city of
Still, there are some Whittier-area water utilities that buy water from MWD.
And their allocation has been cut back by about 10 percent.
But even agencies like Orchard Dale Water District and the city of
"Fortunately, our overall water usage is down almost 10 percent," said Don Jensen, public works director for Santa Fe Springs.
"I think it's because our customers are finally taking it to heart that there's a drought in
Orchard Dale Water District, which serves much of unincorporated
Coleman said the district has leased the rights to pump more underground water.
An acre foot, 326,000 gallons, can be visualized as a football field one-foot deep in water. It also is the amount of water used in a year by an average family of five.
But even as local officials are saying mandatory measures won't be needed, they're still hoping people conserve.
"We are encouraging residents to preserve water because it's a precious resource," Pelser said.
And three local cities -
They're all looking at the Metropolitan Water District model ordinance.
The ordinance bans watering from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and causing water to run off on to streets or alleys and requires restaurants to only serve water when requested.
Officials in
Suburban Water Systems recently mailed a letter with 12 voluntary conservation measures residents can implement. #
http://www.whittierdailynews.com/news/ci_12295371
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