Typically, water utilities’ budgets are funded by revenue
collected through water and sewer rates. Revenue generated by
rates covers the costs of operations, as well as ongoing upgrades
and repairs to pipelines, treatment plants, sewers and other
water infrastructure.
State legislation also has affected the water rate-setting
process by requiring new processes for altering water rates, as
well as by requiring water conservation, which in turn decreases
the demand for water.
Across Monterey County, there are few topics more talked about
or litigated than water. David Schmalz here, and I’ve
covered water in most corners of the county for the better part
of the last decade, and in my opinion, the topic has never been
more interesting or eventful than it is right now, at least on
the Monterey Peninsula. I’m going to be covering a lot of
ground here—err, water, I mean—but I’ll keep it as tight as I
can. There’s a lot to catch you up on. First, on Sept. 13, the
Monterey Peninsula Water Management District released its draft
“resolution of necessity,” a document that, if approved,
is the first step in the eminent domain process for a public
buyout of Cal Am’s Monterey service area. -Written by columnist David Schmalz.
The city of Napa is set to consider an increase to water rates
for the first time in two years to cover the increasing costs
of providing service. The Napa City Council will hold a hearing
Nov. 7 to adopt the new rates. If approved, they would be
effective Jan. 1 and customers likely would see the impact on
bills in March and April, said Joy Eldredge, deputy city
utilities director. The recommended increase will typically add
up to about $5 each month in the winter and $10 each month in
the summer for average users — between 4,000 and 8,000 gallons
— each year until 2028 for residential users within the city.
The Board of Directors of the Monterey Peninsula Water
Management District plans on holding a public hearing to
consider the acquisition of the Monterey Water System. The
board is considering adopting a Resolution of Necessity for
taking by eminent domain in order to convert the privately
owned and operated water system to public ownership and
control. Currently, the Monterey Water System is privately held
by the California American Water Company.
The Pleasanton City Council voted Tuesday to delay a
controversial plan to raise water rates by 62 percent over the
next three years. Council members voted to conduct further
analysis based on numerous resident concerns, and reconsider
the hikes at their Nov. 7 meeting. The council voted
unanimously to delay the vote, though Councilmember Julie Testa
left before the vote due to a family emergency.
San Diego water rates will rise nearly 20 percent over the next
two years after a divided City Council approved Tuesday the
first comprehensive rate hike in nearly eight
years. The rate increases, approved by a vote of 5-3,
will come in three parts: A 5 percent hike on Dec. 1, a 5.2
percent increase next July 1 and an 8.75 percent jump in
January 2025. An earlier version of the proposal would have
raised the rates more quickly — by 10.2 percent on Dec. 1 and
8.75 percent in January 2025. When compounded, the
increases total a 19.8 percent jump. For the average
single-family homeowner, that’s an increase of about $12 per
month.
Gov. Gavin Newsom has before him about a thousand bills
approved by the California Legislature that now await his fate
but some are far more explosive and politically consequential
than others. These bills in Newsom’s pile could reveal how the
governor is evolving as a leader, and now he has less than a
month to review them. … Here is an obscure bill that
will reveal a lot about how much Newsom listens to his inner
circle or his own common sense. Two water districts in Southern
California want to switch water suppliers and leave the San
Diego County Water Authority, the long-time primary provider
for the region. The county’s Local Agency Formation Commission
said yes, including an exit fee intended to address impacts to
the SDCWA budget.
San Diego water bills would rise nearly 20 percent under a
rate-increase proposal the City Council is scheduled to
consider Tuesday. The increase, which city officials began
studying last fall, would be the first comprehensive rate hike
approved by the council in nearly eight years. It would include
a 10.2 increase this December and an 8.75 percent jump in
January 2025. City officials say they need additional revenue
increases to cover rising costs for imported water, upgrades to
thousands of aging pipes and a long list of short-term and
long-term capital projects. The capital projects include the
Pure Water sewage-recycling system, which has been under
construction since last year, and upgrades needed to several
aging city dams that state officials have deemed in poor
condition.
Water and sewer bills in Grover Beach could increase by nearly
20% to make up for a $2 million deficit in revenue, the city
announced Wednesday in a news release. At its Sept. 5 meeting,
the Grover Beach City Council learned about the findings from a
recent utility rate study, heard recommendations and
unanimously instructed the city staff to start the Proposition
218 process, a step in notifying the public about proposed rate
changes, the release said. Prior to the 2023 study, the city
conducted rate studies approximately every five years, with one
conducted in 2021.
More than a thousand people have recently signed a new petition
to ask the Pleasanton City Council and city staff to postpone
the upcoming decision to increase water rates. The
petition on change.org, which cites just over 1,600 signatures
as of Wednesday morning, claims that city officials have not
done a good job communicating accurate information about their
proposal — which is a shared concern among some
residents. Resident concerns were heightened after the
city sent out a state-mandated public notice brochure,
which many said was very confusing to read and understand.
Several residents, like Jocelyn Combs, even pointed out
formatting errors that made the document difficult to follow.
Just as residents in rural East Orosi are getting some traction
on drinking water issues, they are dealing with what they call
abusive treatment over sewage services and they’ve had enough.
At a recent protest during the East Orosi Community Services
District meeting, about 40 residents laid out charges of
mistreatment. They alleged the district has overcharged them
and even threatened to call immigration services on some
residents. They laid the blame at the feet of a single district
employee and what they say is a dysfunctional board. The
problem is apparently tangled up with conjoined water issues
that have separate oversight authority – sewage and drinking
water.
San Diego County supervisors have formally weighed in on a
contentious — and increasingly costly — plan by two rural water
districts to break away from a regional authority they say is
too expensive. The county board voted 3-1 this week in favor of
a recommendation from Supervisor Joel Anderson to support state
legislation that would require approval by a majority of all
voters within the regional water authority — rather than only
those residents of a breakaway district. “This process would
allow water customers of all (San Diego County Water Authority)
member agencies to decide what is best for our region’s water
future and the potential implications of their own water
bills,” the former state senator told his board colleagues.
Cattle producers who own and manage land in Butte, Colusa,
Glenn, and Tehama counties are gravely concerned with the
approach adopted by the Groundwater Sustainability Agencies
(GSAs) in our respective basin/counties. In every basin,
non-extractors (or de minimis users who only pump stock water)
are being assessed acreage fees by the GSA to generate the
funding required to comply with the Sustainable Groundwater
Management Act (SGMA). Cattle producers are predominantly
rangeland operations that do not use groundwater, and in fact,
serve as a net recharge zone for the basins.
In a city infamous for business-squelching bureaucracy, no
agency is more maligned than the Los Angeles Department of
Water and Power. Developers who want to build housing, shopping
centers or other commercial projects face steep costs and long
delays in getting permits and connections to the city’s
electric power system. The DWP’s convoluted process can add so
much time, money and uncertainty to a project that some
businesses decide to build elsewhere, costing the city
much-needed investment, particularly in housing. This month the
DWP adopted the second of two policies aimed at making the
utility more business friendly by cutting power infrastructure
costs for individual housing and commercial projects. It’s a
good start, but there’s a lot more work to do.
The Modesto City Council voted Tuesday evening to boost water
rates nearly 25% by 2027. The average residential bill will go
from $67.13 a month now to $83.66 in 2027, a staff report said.
Actual charges are much higher in the dry months and lower in
other times. Under state law, the proposal would have died if a
majority of the 75,584 customers filed protests. Only 144 did.
The San Diego County Water Authority filed suit Monday to stop
the rural Fallbrook and Rainbow water districts from leaving
the county system, citing environmental harm under the
California Environmental Quality Act. The lawsuit filed in
Superior Court challenges a decision by the San Diego Local
Agency Formation Commission to allow the two districts to join
Riverside County without paying what the Water Authority says
is their fair share of water-reliability investments. The
“detachment” effort is the first of its kind in California and
would shift approximately $140 million in costs to the rest of
the Water Authority’s customers.
As California slowly emerges from
the depths of the COVID-19 pandemic, one remnant left behind by
the statewide lockdown offers a sobering reminder of the economic
challenges still ahead for millions of the state’s residents and
the water agencies that serve them – a mountain of water debt.
Water affordability concerns, long an issue in a state where
millions of people struggle to make ends meet, jumped into
overdrive last year as the pandemic wrenched the economy. Jobs
were lost and household finances were upended. Even with federal
stimulus aid and unemployment checks, bills fell by the wayside.
The bill is coming due, literally,
to protect and restore groundwater in California.
Local agencies in the most depleted groundwater basins in
California spent months putting together plans to show how they
will achieve balance in about 20 years.
Low-income Californians can get help with their phone bills, their natural gas bills and their electric bills. But there’s only limited help available when it comes to water bills.
That could change if the recommendations of a new report are implemented into law. Drafted by the State Water Resources Control Board, the report outlines the possible components of a program to assist low-income households facing rising water bills.
In the universe of California water, Tim Quinn is a professor emeritus. Quinn has seen — and been a key player in — a lot of major California water issues since he began his water career 40 years ago as a young economist with the Rand Corporation, then later as deputy general manager with the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, and finally as executive director of the Association of California Water Agencies. In December, the 66-year-old will retire from ACWA.
During drought, people conserve water. That’s a good thing for
public water agencies and the state as a whole but the reduction
in use ultimately means less money flowing into the budgets of
those very agencies that need funds to treat water to drinkable
standards, maintain a distribution system, and build a more
drought-proof supply.
“There are two things that can’t happen to a water utility – you
can’t run out of money and you can’t run out of water,” said Tom
Esqueda, public utilities director for the city of Fresno. He was
a panelist at a June 16 discussion in Sacramento about drought
resiliency sponsored by the Public Policy Institute of California
(PPIC).
This printed issue of Western Water examines water
infrastructure – its costs and the quest to augment traditional
brick-and-mortar facilities with sleeker, “green” features.
This printed issue of Western Water examines the
financing of water infrastructure, both at the local level and
from the statewide perspective, and some of the factors that
influence how people receive their water, the price they pay for
it and how much they might have to pay in the future.
This printed issue of Western Water looks at some of
the pieces of the 2009 water legislation, including the Delta
Stewardship Council, the new requirements for groundwater
monitoring and the proposed water bond.
This printed issue of Western Water examines the
changed nature of the California Water Plan, some aspects of the
2009 update (including the recommendation for a water finance
plan) and the reaction by certain stakeholders.
This printed copy of Western Water examines the challenges facing
small water systems, including drought preparedness, limited
operating expenses and the hurdles of complying with costlier
regulations. Much of the article is based on presentations at the
November 2007 Small Systems Conference sponsored by the Water
Education Foundation and the California Department of Water
Resources.
This printed issue of Western Water features a
roundtable discussion with Anthony Saracino, a water resources
consultant; Martha Davis, executive manager of policy development
with the Inland Empire Utilities Agency and senior policy advisor
to the Delta Stewardship Council; Stuart Leavenworth, editorial
page editor of The Sacramento Bee and Ellen Hanak, co-director of
research and senior fellow at the Public Policy Institute of
California.
Many Californians don’t realize that when they turn on the
faucet, the water that flows out could come from a source close
to home or one hundreds of miles away. Most people take their
water for granted; not thinking about the elaborate systems and
testing that go into delivering clean, plentiful water to
households throughout the state. Where drinking water comes from,
how it’s treated, and what people can do to protect its quality
are highlighted in this 2007 PBS documentary narrated by actress
Wendie Malick.
A 30-minute version of the 2007 PBS documentary Drinking Water:
Quenching the Public Thirst. This DVD is ideal for showing at
community forums and speaking engagements to help the public
understand the complex issues surrounding the elaborate systems
and testing that go into delivering clean, plentiful water to
households throughout the state.
It’s no secret that providing water in a state with the size and
climate of California costs money. The gamut of water-related
infrastructure – from reservoirs like Lake Oroville to the pumps
and pipes that deliver water to homes, businesses and farms –
incurs initial and ongoing expenses. Throw in a new spate of
possible mega-projects, such as those designed to rescue the
ailing Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, and the dollar amount grows
exponentially to billion-dollar amounts that rival the entire
gross national product of a small country.
