Department of Water Resources
California Water News
A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment
August 5, 2009
5. Agencies, Programs, People –
Tempers flare in city water wars
Antelope Valley Press
DWP ratepayer advocate needed to serve residents
L.A. Daily News
One drop at a time: Redwood Valley family dramatically cuts water use
Ukiah Daily Journal
Community garden uses recycled water
Placerville Mountain Democrat
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Tempers flare in city water wars
Antelope Valley Press-8/4/09
Tuesday, August 4, 2009.
By Charles F. Bostwick
As Palmdale city and water district officials prepare to return to court over the water district's May rate hike, they are lobbing criticism back and forth.
Palmdale Water District placed a full-page advertisement in Sunday's Antelope Valley Press, saying the city's lawsuit against the water district will only cost taxpayers and ratepayers money that could better be spent in other ways.
Mayor Jim Ledford responded Monday in a letter calling the rate hike "exorbitant and incomprehensible" as well as illegal.
A Los Angeles Superior Court judge last month refused Palmdale's request for a preliminary injunction to block the rate hike, but another court hearing is scheduled Wednesday in Los Angeles on the city's request for a permanent injunction. A city attorney said it could take months before the request goes to trial.
"PWD has won the first court ruling, but the city insists it will continue lawsuits, so the battle begins," the Palmdale Water District ad said. "PWD estimates it will be forced to spend half a million dollars to defend itself against the city. The city will likely spend half a million dollars to attack PWD. That's one million dollars spent with no benefit to our community."
The mayor's letter says water district officials disregarded state law in passing a water rate increase he says was so complicated "not one of the district board members took up the challenge to calculate their personal rate increase without help from the district's engineers, employees or attorneys."
To the advertisement's statement that city officials rejected settlement attempts, the mayor said: "Hate to mince words here, but this is a bald-faced lie.
If settling means allowing the collection of an illegal rate increase while the district does a 'do-over' on the rate increase (both non-negotiable demands of the district), then I suppose they have a point. … If settlement means the continued mismanagement of the district and the squandering of massive reserves, then the district again has a point.
The city's lawsuit, filed five days before the water district board voted 3-2 to hike rates in a complex formula based on monthly usage, elevation, landscaping area, water meter size and other factors, says the rate proposal was not properly explained or presented to customers.
But Judge Conrad Aragon, at a July 8 hearing, said in order to issue a preliminary injunction he needed to hear more than opinions and interpretations.
"The city fails … to demonstrate that there is no rational relationship between increased costs and the increased rates proposed in the notice, even assuming that the disputed 300% increase is a correct assumption," Aragon's ruling said.
The ruling said water district officials set forth their reasons for raising rates in their public notice announcing the rate proposal.
"For example, the notice explains that increases are needed because of general increases in costs since 2005, necessary infrastructure repairs, promotion of conservation, improving water quality, responding to decreased water deliveries, among other reasons stated," the ruling said.#
http://www.avpress.com/n/04/0804_s4.hts
DWP ratepayer advocate needed to serve residents
L.A. Daily News-8/4/09
By Paul Hatfield
Opinion
Would you invest in a company that was audited only once every five years and whose top executives were appointed by officials who were recipients of cash contributions from those affiliated with it?
How about if the person responsible for supervising the audit received cash from sources with a vested interest in the company? No, you say? Think again.
You and all of your neighbors have a stake in such an entity. It is the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power - the largest municipal utility company in the United States.
The mayor of Los Angeles nominates commissioners for the DWP board, and the City Council confirms the appointments. The mayor also influences the selection of DWP's executives and key staff.
The mayor and many members of the City Council have been beneficiaries of campaign support, both financial and logistical, from the DWP's primary employee union. Wendy Greuel, the recently installed city controller with the responsibility for conducting the DWP audit, received a late infusion of nearly $200,000 to her campaign from the IBEW, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. The donation helped her avoid a runoff in the March primary election.
The DWP transfers tens of millions of dollars to the city's general fund annually, monies that should be devoted to infrastructure improvements to water and electricity capacity, but are instead wasted by the City Council for unaccountable projects throughout the city.
None of this facilitates independent oversight of this valuable asset's management. If anything, it assures a conflict of interest will exist between our elected officials and the DWP unless something is done to break that connection.
We can eliminate this chummy relationship with an amendment to the City Charter requiring the appointment of an independent ratepayer advocate. To be effective, the amendment must require that the advocate have full access to the DWP's records and be funded from the DWP's well-endowed overhead budget.
More importantly, the ratepayer advocate would answer only to the residents of the city and serve for a specified term, out of reach of the mayor, City Council, unions and the DWP commissioners.
There are two ways to approve a charter amendment for the ballot: the City Council can approve it, or supporters can gather more than 200,000 signatures of registered voters throughout the city. The former would probably result in a watered-down version with less power assigned to the ratepayer advocate; the latter would probably have more teeth.
However, even a City Council-approved amendment could be effective if the neighborhood councils and other individual stakeholders have a strong say in formulating it through public hearings and community outreach.
The time has come for the ratepayer advocate. If anything, it is many years overdue. We are entering an era of water and energy deficiencies. The solutions will require massive investment, along with a sensible and fair plan for raising the required capital. If this is not the time for an independent watchdog, then when?
Paul Hatfield is a CPA and treasurer of the Neighborhood Council Valley Village.#
http://www.dailynews.com/search/ci_12993078?IADID=Search-www.dailynews.com-www.dailynews.com
One drop at a time: Redwood Valley family dramatically cuts water use
Ukiah Daily Journal-8/5/09
By Carole Brodsky
Louisa Aronow and her husband have been Redwood Valley residents for 20 years. In 2007, anticipating the current water crisis, they began to make small and large changes to the way they thought about and used water. Now, two years later, they are astounded by their success.
"From June 20th to July 20th this year, we used about 3,000 units of water. That is less than one-third of the usage compared to the same time in 2007, and less than one-sixth compared to the same time period in 2004."
The household is now using about 33 gallons per person per day, a whopping 27 gallons under the limit currently recommended by the Redwood Valley Water District.
How did they do it? A lot of the success involved changing the way Aronow thought about water, combined with some innovative storage solutions. "There were so many things we never used to think about," says Aronow. "We used to use purified drinking water to water our garden. We always flushed our toilet every time we used it."
In 2007, Aronow attended a lecture by Brad Lancaster, author of the two-volume "Rainwater Harvesting for Dryland and Beyond."
"The lecture totally changed my concept of gardening and water use. Then I read everything I could find about conservation using rainwater."
In January of 2008, Aronow and her husband created what they call their "Mickey Mouse rainwater catchment system. We were determined to catch rainwater." They were able to salvage bio-diesel containers from Yokayo Biofuels, transforming them into water storage tanks.
They created a moveable gutter system which caught their roof's rainwater. As each 275-gallon tank filled up, they transferred the gutter to the next tank.
The cost: practically nothing.
In the summer of that same year, the Aronows upgraded to a new 2,600-gallon storage tank which has an attached overflow. This tank has all the proper elements for water storage: algae and mosquito proofing and an installed filter.
Between all of their storage tanks, they were able to catch 5,000 gallons of water, using only half of their roof.
The amount of rainwater that falls off a roof is astounding, according to Aronow. "Six hundred gallons of water falls on a 1,000 square foot roof from only 1 inch of rain," says Aronow. "In a dry winter like we had last year, 30 inches of rain equals about 18,000 gallons of water."
The next steps involved re-thinking her garden. "My yard isn't really pretty," says Aronow. She has all but abandoned thirsty ornamentals and replaced them with drought-tolerant plants, and satisfies her artistic craving by working on the ornamental gardens at the Kol ha Emek synagogue in Redwood Valley, where she is also employing water-saving techniques.
"We plant closer to where the water is located, because we are doing more hand-watering. There is not enough pressure to use a drip system, but this keeps us closer to the plants," she smiles. They evaluated the kinds of vegetables they were growing and now choose plants that require less water and yield more. "We eat something from the garden every day. We just harvested about 50 pounds of potatoes."
Using a ditching technique, Aronow has dug 18-inch trenches around her trees, which are filled with wood chips. The chips act like a filter and store water around the thirsty trees.
"We planned our landscaping around the rainwater ditches." She estimates that the ditches extended her "wet" season about a month.
Using lots and lots of mulch is key to her gardening success. "We use straw, newspaper, leaves and wood chips." She mulches after the earwigs are finished in July.
Aronow notes that greywater rules are changing, and she will be employing systems to take advantage of this new water source. She cites the work of Art Ludwig, author of "Create an Oasis with Greywater."
"He is probably the U.S. expert on how to use greywater." When correctly installed, Aronow is confident that using greywater will be perfectly safe. "Art Ludwig has never seen an example of infectious diseases occurring from the proper use of a greywater system."
Aronow acknowledges that not all water-saving measures will work for everyone, but there are small things that any family can incorporate into their daily routine and each measure will add up and result in measurable savings. "We paid a plumber to fix leaks around the house. We've reduced our shower time and we use captured shower water to flush the toilet." In her living room, a box containing a brand-new 1.6-gallon is set to replace the 5-gallon model in her bathroom.
Aronow has had a few surprises as a result of her water conservation efforts. "It's really brought unity to our household of three adults, and I have developed a deepened spiritual understanding of how precious this resource is."
From their peak summer usage of 19,000 gallons two years ago to 3.000 gallons for the same period today, the Aronows are more than doing their part to conserve. "It's working," says Aronow. "It does take effort and patience, but when you're moving hoses and hauling water, you just smile and know it's good exercise."
And perhaps the most rewarding thing is hearing those drops on the roof. "It's fun when it's raining and you hear the sound of the water, and you know it's going to the right place."#
Community garden uses recycled water
Placerville Mountain Democrat-8/4/09
Residents of the Four Seasons active adult community in El Dorado Hills recently celebrated the completion of the first phase of their new community garden, including the use of recycled water to irrigate the plants.
Key community members working to make the garden a reality included Pat Ghiglieri, garden committee chair and site supervisor for EID; Ron Bianchetti, Four Seasons homeowners association board president; and Albert Hazbun, who authored the engineer's report and developed the garden requirement materials.
EID recycled water coordinator Doug Venable, senior environmental compliance officer Marty Johnson and recycled water compliance inspector Tim Webster worked closely with the developer and residents to ensure compliance with state requirements. Doug and Marty were on hand to represent the district at the event.
“This is such a great project,” said Venable, “one of only a couple like it in the state. It's been a pleasure working with the community members and the developer to make this space a reality.”
The garden has raised planting beds for easy disabled access and 16-foot square plots that residents can use to grow vegetables, herbs and flowers. Phase two, already in the works, will add an orchard, rose garden and small vineyard to the site.
In California recycled water is authorized for use on all edible food crops. Farms in the Central Valley use more than 150 billion gallons of recycled water for edible food crops every year.
Since the late 1970s, EID has maintained separate irrigation and reclamation distribution systems in El Dorado Hills. Initially the system provided secondary-treated recycled water to the El Dorado Hills Executive Golf Course and the Wetsel-Oviatt construction yard.
In late 1989 EID reached an agreement with the Serrano Partners to develop a recycled water system from the Deer Creek wastewater treatment plant. Since that time, EID has upgraded the El Dorado Hills wastewater treatment plant to produce disinfected tertiary recycled water for unrestricted use. The recycled water is continuously monitored to meet or exceed state standards.
In 2004 the EID Board of Directors mandated the use of recycled water for all new subdivisions and developments in the recycled water service area.
Currently, the two plants produce more than 1 billion gallons of recycled water each year for almost 4000 customers and businesses in the El Dorado Hills community.
The California Water Code (§§ 13550 – 13556) declares that the use of drinking water for landscape irrigation is a “...waste or an unreasonable use of water....” EID's recycled water program utilizes recycled water to save a lot of that drinking water.#
http://search.mtdemocrat.com/display.php?id=51942
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