Turmoil in S.D. water world now reaches Sacramento

What seemed like an internal dispute among San Diego County water agencies is now reverberating in Sacramento and Los Angeles, potentially raising the stakes in the outcome.

At issue is the effort by two small North County water districts to get out from under the San Diego County Water Authority umbrella and hook up with an agency in Riverside County to obtain cheaper water.

But that would lead to higher rates for remaining authority members and possibly alter the governing structure of the massive Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, according to the leader of the Los Angeles-based agency.

Meanwhile, heavy political maneuvering could make the process to leave the county water authority, which wasn’t easy to begin with, much more difficult.

This turmoil adds to the growing woes of the SDCWA.

For years, San Diego had been the envy of parched regions across California and the West.

While other agencies looked high and low for new water sources to replenish drought-depleted supplies, the county water authority’s aggressive, two-decade push to obtain additional water and improve the region’s plumbing infrastructure looked prescient.

But warning signs of potential trouble have increasingly surfaced in recent years, and now the regional water agency and its members face serious challenges.

The concern isn’t a sudden shortage of water. In fact, a big part of the problem may be that the region has too much of it.

While that might seem like a good problem to have, the costs of the building spree and buying water threaten to overwhelm the pocketbooks of everyday residents as well as the

SDCWA’S finances.

Among other things, tremendous and unanticipated conservation efforts by water users over the years have left the region, for now, overstocked. As a result, SDCWA’S sales have plummeted, and thus its revenues. But because most of the costs are fixed through long-term water contracts and other investments, water rates will continue to rise.

The water authority is cutting planned projects and considering tapping a dwindling reserve fund to stabilize rates, which some officials said could eventually hurt the agency’s credit rating, according to Joshua Emerson Smith of The San Diego Union-tribune.

Now the potential exodus of the Rainbow Municipal Water District and the Fallbrook Public Utility District is hitting a critical point, adding another layer of complexity.

Rainbow and Fallbrook officials say their rural customers — particularly farmers tending to shrinking agricultural operations — will not be able to afford the high cost of SDCWA water. The districts could get water for about 25 percent less through the Eastern Metropolitan Water District in Riverside than what they are now paying.

Those officials contend the costs from so-called “detachment” would be small compared with the increases to pay for expensive water from the Carlsbad desalination plant, the city of San Diego’s eventual Pure Water sewage recycling program and other projects.

Rainbow and Fallbrook also say that an anticipated exit fee for leaving the water authority would blunt the impact of detachment on water rates in the authority’s 22 other member districts.

Opponents, particularly the city of San Diego, say such a divorce would further burden residents living within the water authority’s other 22 member districts, who already face steep hikes.

They argue that the Fallbrook Public Utility District and Rainbow Municipal Water District shouldn’t be allowed to cut and run to avoid the longterm shared costs.

Wrangling over the dispute has gone statewide.

Assemblymember Tasha Boerner, D-encinitas, recently introduced legislation backed by the city of San Diego that could put an insurmountable hurdle in front of the North County districts.

Under the current process, a regional governmental body known as the Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCO) would have to approve the proposal by the two districts, which would then need separate majority votes from constituents within their boundaries

before the move could go ahead.

Boerner’s Assembly Bill 530, if approved, would also require a majority vote within the water authority jurisdiction, which covers almost the entire county.

Fallbrook and Rainbow officials cry foul, saying they have been working on the detachment for years and this is a last-minute attempt to change the rules.

Officials opposed to the move say because residents across the county would experience rate increases of varying degrees, they deserve a say in the matter. Without an exit fee, the costs would rise about $1.05 per month for ratepayers in the city of San Diego and up to $18 a month for people in Pauma Valley’s Yuima Municipal Water District, Smith reported.

The regionwide average increase would be $2.20 a month, according to a LAFCO analysis.

Opponents also note the process in AB 530 is similar to what currently exists when communities want to leave a city and form their own municipality.

Such would be the case in La Jolla, for example. A faction in the coastal enclave is making another attempt to secede from the city of San Diego. Voters in La Jolla would have to approve the plan and then voters citywide.

Last Monday, LAFCO considered the Rainbow and Fallbrook proposals, but delayed action until Aug. 7 after some commission

members said they wanted more time to study the matter, which has become something of a moving target.

There’s the uncertainty about the fate of Boerner’s legislation, for one thing. Also, Metropolitan Water District board chair Adán Ortega Jr. told the commission that Metropolitan’s approval also is required before the two small districts can leave SDCWA, according to the Voice of San Diego.

The county water authority is a member of Metropolitan, as are, by extension, the Rainbow and Fallbrook districts.

In a letter to LAFCO, Ortega said the districts’ exit “may impact not only the finance, long-term planning and water-supply issues, but the balance of our weighted voting system and thus our governance.”

That runs counter to previous Metropolitan opinions that the Los Angeles-based agency is not required to weigh in on these proposals.

Regardless, at least for the moment, it seems the North County Davids are facing a growing number of Goliaths.

Tweet of the Week

Goes to the National Park Service (@Natlparkservice).

“If you’re carpooling with wildlife, you’re doing it wrong.”

JOHN GIBBINS U-T FILE The San Vicente Reservoir near Lakeside provides water to residents in East County.