A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment
July 28, 2009
2. Supply –
Slow the flow, state tells Cal Am; new water restrictions proposed;
Order sets restrictions on pumping from Carmel River
The Herald
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While the Imperial Irrigation District’s $3 per acre-foot agricultural water rate increase will be spread over the next three years, for farmers it becomes one more expense at a lean economic time.
Nearly all crop prices are down compared to 2008 highs, and most are down below 2007 levels as well.
And farmer Al Kalin said that with fuel prices creeping up again, the costs of many other commodities are going to increase, such as fertilizer, which uses crude oil in its production.
The combination of low selling prices and high costs of production are squeezing the profit margins of many farmers.
Still, he said, spreading out the increase provides some relief.
“It’s certainly a lot better than all at once,” Kalin said.
Kalin said he expected the IID would need to raise water rates eventually, but he questioned whether the district was doing all it could to eliminate inefficiencies before calling for the increase.
“I don’t think the district is doing what they can to reduce costs,” he said.
Farmer Larry Cox said that while $1 per acre-foot is not going to put anyone out of business on its own, it adds onto the costs of production. Cox said the dollar increase would mean an additional $24,000 per year for a farmer that puts 6 acre-feet of water per acre on 4,000 acres of land.
“That’s a pretty good chunk of change,” Cox said.
Cox raised the possibility the district could make money off of its water underrun, as the district is set to use at least 100,000 acre-feet less than its normal 3.1 million acre-feet yearly allotment this year from the
Cox said that in Firebaugh, a farming community in the
“I know there’s things like water rights that come into play, but that could make up for the water rate increase right there,” Cox said. #
http://www.ivpressonline.com/articles/2009/07/28/local_news/farm01.txt
Slow the flow, state tells Cal Am; new water restrictions proposed;
Order sets restrictions on pumping from Carmel River
The Herald – 7/28/09
By Larry Parsons
The state water board late Monday released a long-awaited proposed order to ramp down California American Water's pumping from the
The draft order, which appears to be less restrictive than one issued 18 months ago, comes after the state Water Resources Control Board held extensive hearings last summer on Cal Am's long-standing illegal diversion of water from the river.
In 1995, the state said Cal Am, which had been taking up to 14,000 acre-feet a year from the river, had a legal right to only 3,376 acre-feet annually. The river supplies about 75 percent of the water consumed by Cal Am's
Last year's hearings came after the state issued a January 2008 cease-and-desist order that would have sharply reduced river pumping. Cal Am, which supplies much of the
The 2008 order, for example, called for a 15 percent reduction in
The proposed order released Monday doesn't appear to go so far — or so quickly.
"It does appear to be a lot more protracted," said Darby Fuerst, general manager of the Monterey Peninsula Water Management District.
William Rukeyser, a water board spokesman, said the new draft order "specifies a percentage each and every year ... so the water company would come closer to only using the water to which it is entitled."
But Rukeyser said the final action rests with the water board. "This is another step in that process," he said.
The 2008 order, Fuerst said, called for cutting Cal Am's take from the
The new proposal calls for Cal Am, starting in October, to reduce its river diversions by 5 percent, or 549 acre-feet.
In addition, the draft order would require further reductions annually until 2014 of 121 acre-feet a year by trimming system losses, reducing potable water use for outdoor irrigation and installing water-saving fixtures. After 2014, the required annual reductions would jump to 242 acre-feet.
Some of the required reductions could be offset by water delivered each year by the underground storage project — which stores water underground during wet months for pumping during dry months — and the small Sand City desalination plant.
The order would allow Cal Am to seek relief from the requirements on three conditions: if a moratorium on new hookups is in effect; if the
The order also would require Cal Am to create one or more water projects that would produce at least 500 acre-feet of water annually.
In the proposed order, the water board sharply criticizes the progress — or lack of progress — that Cal Am had made in the past 13 years on finding other sources of water to reduce its take from the Carmel River.
"The lower 9.5 miles of the riverbed are dry for five to six months of each year, due primarily to Cal Am's diversions," the draft order says. "Cal Am's diversions ... continue to have an adverse effect on the fish, wildlife and riparian habitat of the river, including the threatened steelhead."
The draft order notes that Cal Am must operate in a complex legal and governmental framework to develop new water sources. But it goes on to say, "We find that nearly 13 years after (the 1995 order), Cal Am has implemented astonishingly few actions to reduce its unlawful diversions."
Cal Am spokeswoman Catherine Bowie took issue with the draft order's criticism.
"Everyone is working as hard as they can to save water and find a new water supply," she said. #
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