CalFed Takes it on the Chin

From the SacBee.Com:

It's an authority with no authority, with a governmental structure that "only perhaps a mother could love," said Mary Nichols, the state's former resources secretary.

But the California Bay-Delta Authority is still the only operation in the state with a full-time charge to coordinate the backbone of a water system that delivers the elixir of life to millions of people, the growers of more than 40 major crops and an untold number of fish.

How well it works is a matter of debate, and the discussion at this point is being won by the forces that say the authority isn't faring so well - as evidenced by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's call to the state's Little Hoover Commission two months ago to come up with a plan to fix it.

The history and the issues at stake:

The state's government watchdog agency began its public work Thursday with a hearing at the Capitol. A former California governor and a former secretary of the federal Interior Department recalled the good old days when a state-federal water policy process called CalFed brought more than two dozen, at times competing, governmental water agencies into multijurisdictional harmony.

What worked well a decade ago, however, has since slipped into "a substantial degree of uncertainty," according to keynote testimony provided by Bruce Babbitt, the Democratic one-time chief of the Interior Department. Former Republican Gov. Pete Wilson concurred, characterizing federal-state water policy as one where "process has replaced leadership."

The two recommended that California and the federal government get a fix on the problems as soon as possible. At stake is a multibillion-dollar system of pipelines, pumps, levees, aqueducts and other conveyances that channel Northern California water southward through the Delta and onward to the San Joaquin Valley and Southern California.

"Otherwise, we're going to be pumping salt water into the California Aqueduct sometime this century," Babbitt said.

New DWP Board Members Appointed

From the LA Times:

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa on Monday appointed a five-member board for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power that is packed with environmental advocates who vowed to accelerate the agency's move toward cleaner sources of energy, including solar and wind power.

Villaraigosa said the appointments, announced at a Griffith Park nursery that provides free trees to DWP customers, reflect his commitment to a "cleaner and greener" city.

The appointees, who must be approved by the City Council, include Mary Nichols, director of the UCLA Institute of the Environment; David Nahai, a member of the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board; and William Burke, chairman of the South Coast Air Quality Management District.

Villaraigosa also appointed Nick Patsaouras, the owner of an engineering company, and Edith Ramirez, a business attorney, to the water and power board, which oversees the largest municipal utility in the nation.

The LA Business Journal Online adds this historical comment:

Under the administration of former Mayor James Hahn, the DWP escaped fallout of the state’s disastrous electricity deregulation law, but became the focal point for ethics and contracting investigations, including repeated extensions of a multi-million dollar public relations contract with Fleishman-Hillard International.

Another Water Plan

According to this Opinion piece in the Ventura County Star, the Association of California Water Agencies has "devoted a year to developing an action plan that, if implemented, will secure our state's water future." Reminds me of the DWR water plan; I wonder how the two differ?

From the Star:

The recently released plan, titled "No Time to Waste: A Blueprint for California Water," recommends an array of actions and investments to improve water supplies, water use efficiency, water quality and environmental health.

Developed by a task force representing local public water agencies from throughout the state, the ACWA blueprint is intended draw attention to our water supply challenges and provide to state and federal leaders the specific recommendations needed to ensure California has the water supply system it will need to support people, jobs and ecosystems in the future.

Some of the most critical recommendations involve the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, the heart of our water supply system and home to a number of at-risk fish species. Recent data showing a decline in some Delta fish populations underscore the need for actions to address ecosystem and water supply reliability problems and allow the Delta to function better for both fish and people.

Other recommendations call for evaluating long-term threats to Delta levees and pursuing actions to reduce risks to the state's water supply and the environment; developing additional groundwater and surface-water storage; and supporting and funding local efforts to expand recycled water use, water use efficiency and desalination of seawater and brackish groundwater.

Big Bear Investigates Supply Options

From Bear Valley News:

[A]t the Big Bear Area Regional Wastewater Agency (BBARWA) meeting held on Wednesday, July 27th, Scott Heule of the Big Bear Lake Department of Water and Power (DWP) gave a presentation about the estimated costs of buying water from other agencies. The BBARWA board asked the DWP to do the research, to see a general comparison of the purchase of water to the Recharge Project that they are investigating. Past BBARWA research has confirmed that the Greenspot recharge site could hold 1000 acre feet per year, so that amount was used as the amount of water that would be purchased within a year.

Getting the water up to Big Bear proved quite expensive.

There were three sources for the Bear Valley to import water; CLAWA (Crestline Lake Arrowhead Water Agency), the State Water Project (Water from Northern California), and water located in Lucerne Valley. Heule broke down the conceptual costs into acre feet, though he was quick to remind people that these are not exact figures. The members of CLAWA have been building on their system for years. If the Bear Valley were to join their group, the valley would have to buy into the system for the approximate costs that the current CLAWA members have spent. Heule was unable to get an estimate of the buy-in cost and was only told that the “amount would be an enormous cost”. After the initial buy-in cost, there would have to be a pipeline built to get the potable (drinkable) water to the valley and since the pipes would have to come from the lower elevation of Crestline and Arrowhead, booster stations would have to be installed to push the water up hill. The final cost per acre foot would be $1150 of potable water.

The State Water Project water could be purchased from three possible water groups; Silverwood Lake and San Bernardino/Highland, and the Lucerne Valley Water Agency. The water from all three of these agencies would be untreated water, which would mean that the Valley would have to have a treatment plant here so that the water could be consumed by humans. Pipelines and booster stations would need to be built to get the water to the valley. The Silverwood and San Bernardino/Highland sties would have 5,200 feet of lift needed and the Lucerne Valley would have 4,000 to 5,100 feet lift needed. The added costs of building a treatment plant and the pipeline system makes any of these projects cost prohibited, though no figure was given. As this water is from Northern California, should there be a drought in the north, they could interrupt the delivery of water to the valley to supply their Northern California customers first.

Water purchased from the Lucerne Valley could be purchased from two potential sources; State Project water via the Morongo Valley pipeline and the private well owners. The problems with using are stated above, which leaves only the private well owners. There are three possible ways of laying pipeline from the source to the valley; however the lease expensive would be from south of Highway 18, through Cactus Flats and along North Shore. The pipeline route crosses 8 different agencies; US Bureau of Land Management (BLM), US Forest Service, San Bernardino Municipal Water, California Department of Water Resources, Mojave Water Agency, Morongo Valley Pipeline, Caltrans, and San Bernardino County. The most difficult of these eight agencies is the BLM, as Bear Valley Electric tried for years to get permission to install larger utility lines to deliver electricity and could not get permission. This leaves the purchase of water from the private well owners. The primary costs would be for the 350 psi pipeline, pumping stations, a water treatment plant near Stanfield Cutoff and North Shore Drive, loan and financing fees, plus the cost of the water. Costs not included in this option are the California Environmental Quality Agency (CEQA), the wheeling of aqueduct carrying capacity charge, capital facilities depreciation and replacement costs. Once pipeline, treatment plant, and operation and maintenance costs are added, the cost per acre foot would be $4,945.

DWP's Comeuppance

An editorial from Saturday's LA Times:

An Owens Valley judge socked the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power right where it hurts the most — the agency's money and its water. Finally, someone may have found a way to get the mighty DWP to obey the law.

Inyo County Superior Court Judge Lee E. Cooper seemed to share valley residents' years of frustration at being Los Angeles' water colony, noting that the department had since 1973 been in violation of the California Environmental Quality Act in its overall treatment of the Owens Valley. "It's been more than 30 years," he exclaimed Monday. "That's incredible." It is. But it's also the long, sorry history of the department to drag its heels legally until it is absolutely forced to do the right thing.

This case stems from the DWP's failure to live up to a 1990s promise and legal order to restore water to a 62-mile stretch of the lower Owens River, from a point between Big Pine and Independence to south of Lone Pine. Cooper ordered the DWP to act now or face a $5,000-a-day fine and, much more seriously, the loss of supply from part of Los Angeles' aqueduct system. The DWP said it would comply with the ruling, though it threatens a rate increase.