County, first to approve MOU on New River
On Tuesday the County Board of Supervisors voted to approve a Memorandum of Understanding with the city of Calexico and the Imperial Irrigation District which commits all three agencies financially once the New River Improvement Project is completed.
The county is the first of the three agencies to take a vote on the MOU, the city of Calexico and the IID will discuss the MOU during future board meetings.
County Counsel Katherine Turner said during the BOS meeting Tuesday that staff from IID and the city of Calexico have been heavily involved in the drafting of the MOU presented.
Bringing all three local agencies to come to an agreement as to how responsibilities will be divided once the project is completed was a requirement set by the California Environmental Protection Agency.
The purpose of having an MOU between the local agencies is for CAL EPA to have an assurance that the New River Improvement Project will be sustained once it is built. However, the request made by the Cal EPA was for one of the local agencies to claim ownership of the facility after its completion, something that at this time none of the stakeholders want to do and instead opted to draft an MOU in which all three agencies commit themselves to spend up to $50,000 per year for operations and maintenance cost of the project.
Once the MOU is signed by all parties, the Cal EPA has to review it and determine whether it’s sufficient to move forward with the first phase of the project.
“They are ready to start the actual plans and specs and design and hire a consultant to do that, they have the $1.4 million funded but will not move forward until they get an answer from the three local entities,” Turner said.
The New River Improvement Project is expected to include a trash-collecting screen be placed near the point where the river crosses the international border, as well as undergrounding a segment of the New River’s water flow through a conveyance pipe from a point near the international border up north to Highway 98. The project also includes a parkway to be built along the New River in the vicinity of the Calexico Wastewater Treatment Plant, water from the plant will be used to fill the riverbed in order to have clean water along the parkway.
Despite the approval, the supervisors were concerned that the state will not move forward with the design and engineering portion of the project which will be funded by the $1.4 million if no entity is willing to take full ownership of the project, which county officials resoundingly refuse to do.
“I’m not comfortable with that, I just don’t understand why we have to be getting involved and become the savior for everyone out there who is knocking on our door,” said the Chairman of the Board Michael Kelley.
Because the infrastructure has not been built yet, the supervisors asked Turner to emphasize on the MOU that the local agencies will not begin to fund the operation and maintenance of the project until it is complete. The board voted 4-0 to approve the MOU and will have to await what comments and decisions are made in upcoming Calexico city council and IID meetings.