[env-trinity] San Diego UT: Will SoCal water rescue the north?

[Tom Stokely]

http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2014/feb/09/will-socal-water-rescue-the-north/ 

Will SoCal water rescue the north?
By Michael Gardner5 p.m.Feb. 9, 2014
In this photo taken Tuesday, Feb. 4, 2014, a warning buoy sits on the dry, cracked bed of Lake Mendocino near Ukiah, Calif. Despite recent spot rains The reservoir, located in Mendocino County is currently only about 37 percent full. California remans in the midst of an historic drought causing Gov. Jerry Brown to declare a state of emergency.(AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli) The Associated Press
The Metropolitan Water District finds itself in the politically awkward position of being flush with reserves while the rest of California faces economy-crippling water shortages.
The looming choice posed to the Los Angeles-based wholesaler is this: Gamble the drought will break and agree to share its vast backup supply or play it safe, guard those stockpiles and risk public and political backlash.
Thus far, no formal requests for water have been made and Metropolitan’s board is not expected to tackle the issue publicly for a couple of months. Until then, pressure will mount on Metropolitan if the drought’s grip fails to weaken in these closing weeks of winter.
Meanwhile, Metropolitan’s board on Tuesday is expected to affirm its earlier pledge to Gov. Jerry Brown to launch an aggressive, but voluntary, conservation program to save 20 percent and commit an extra $20 million to water-saving programs.
“We recognize how serious the situation is,” said Debra Man, Metropolitan’s assistant general manager. “The first priority is to meet the needs of the this region.”
But after confirming the southland, including the San Diego region, is taken care of, Metropolitan intends to work with other agencies and the state on how to assist bone-dry regions, she said.
Metropolitan has an array of options but each one comes with its own plumbing and cost challenges:
• Withdraw water from its banks and ship supplies to parched regions. While the reserve account appears large, only smaller amounts can be taken due to contractual and delivery constraints.
• Forego any allocation from the state so that others can use it. However, right now the state has turned off the tap to most users for 2014.
• Strike a deal with some farmers along the Feather River system near Oroville to use less and make that water available to other users throughout its system.
Which option, if any, will probably be determined after state and federal agencies announce final allocations to farms and cities, probably later in March. Those decisions will hinge on snowpack, which is now at 15 percent of normal but expected to increase slightly with the latest series of Sierra storms.
The tug of war is this: Metropolitan has invested billions raised from unpopular rate hikes to shore up its supplies, undoubtedly cementing some views that it should not be quick to ship off southland water. On the other hand, Metropolitan draws large amounts of water from the north during most years and in past droughts bought supplemental supplies.
There also could be longer term consequences for Metropolitan. The agency supports Brown’s polarizing $25 billion “twin tunnel” project to deliver Northern California water south and restore the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. The governor and state lawmakers are also reworking an $11 billion water bond for the November ballot. If Metropolitan is seen as hoarding that could further intensify the perennial north-south water feuds.
“They want the state to understand their needs for facilities and maybe it would be good for them to understand the rest of the state’s needs for water,” suggested Lester Snow, once California’s top water czar and at one time the general manager of the San Diego County Water Authority.
Metropolitan, Snow indicated, has an obligation in times of crisis. “We are one state. Our economy functions interactively. It’s really important to lessen burden, share burden and do it voluntarily,” he said.
Keith Lewinger, a San Diego County Water Authority director who sits on the Metropolitan board, is wary of committing too early.
“We don’t know when the drought is going to end. We are receiving zero allocation from the State Water Project,” he said. “We are not in as dire straits as some other localities, but that’s not to say in two years we won’t be in the same position as they are in now.”
A proposal to transfer reserves “would be greeted with vigorous debate in the board room … Metropolitan has helped in the past. I am not saying we won’t in the future,” added Lewinger, who represents Carlsbad on the county water authority board.
Metropolitan has close to 2.4 million acre feet scattered across the state and in Lake Mead, Nevada. While water certainly will not flow south to north, 772,000 acre feet sits beyond the Tehachapis and can reach the hard-pressed Central Valley. An acre foot is enough to serve two average homes for a year, although water transfers could be targeted for farms.
Metropolitan’s stash has been developed for years so it is not subject to the recent decision by the Department of Water Resources to put a clamp on deliveries.
Metropolitan has not sold surplus water out of its service area, content to cut outside deals that involve borrowing water from one year to the next or exchanging it in one location for water elsewhere.
A price signal was sent by the tiny Kern County-based Buena Vista Water Storage District earlier this month, going out to bid on 12,000 acre feet. It drew 20 bids of more than $1,000 per acre foot, a according to the Bakersfield Californian. Paramount Farming offered $1,100 per acre foot for the entire amount, or $11 million. The well-known Harris Ranch wants 300 acre feet at $1,350 per acre foot, or $405,000 according to the newspaper. In contrast, Metropolitan charges the San Diego County Water Authority $593 for an acre-foot of untreated supply.
Buena Vista is now reviewing which bids to accept.
Today, in the north, Metropolitan has 214,000 acre feet tucked away in San Luis Reservoir. Metropolitan also has water below ground as well as above ground. In the Central Valley, Metropolitan responded to more recent dry spells by paying to keep reserves in three groundwater banks near Bakersfield in Kern County, Combined, it has 558,000 acre feet. However, under agreements in can take only 119,000 acre feet a year. Still, that would be enough for 238,000 homes, or provide irrigation for hundreds of acres of crops.
More recently, Metropolitan struck a favorable deal with Westlands Water District, ironically as the result of the giant agricultural irrigation district having too much water. Westlands stood to lose water in San Luis Reservoir west of Los Banos that was scheduled to be released for flood protection in 2010. Westlands had no place to store it, so Metropolitan offered to take the water in exchange for the rights to keep some of it. Metropolitan netted 100,000 acre feet out of the deal without paying a dime.
Metropolitan has stepped forward in the past. In 1977, then the tail end of what was at the time the worst drought on record, Metropolitan gave up 400,000 acre feet of its state water supplies and instead tapped the Colorado River. That decision doubled the amount of water to Central Valley farmers.
At the same time Metropolitan’s transfers rescued Marin County, which was quickly running out of water. Metropolitan drew more from the Colorado River by installing temporary side boards to increase the capacity of its main aqueduct connected to the Colorado River system.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://www2.dcn.org/pipermail/env-trinity/attachments/20140210/97000aa8/attachment.html>