Panels OK San Diego Water Accord

The governing boards of the Metropolitan Water District and the San Diego County Water Authority overwhelmingly approved a deal Monday that could assure San Diego County an independent supply of water for the next 30 years.

The deal could also mark the beginning of deregulation in the multibillion-dollar California water industry, one of the last public utilities in the state that strictly controls the supply of its resource.

One long-term impact of such deregulation would be to enable relatively wealthy, fast-growing urban areas of the state to seek out and buy water currently allocated to farms. A lack of water is one of the most powerful inhibitors of urban and suburban expansion. An increased supply could translate into more rapid growth.

Under terms of the deal, San Diego County would be guaranteed annual delivery of 200,000 acre-feet of water that the MWD would procure from farmers in the Imperial Valley.

MWD officials took care to point out that the deal would not technically be a transfer of Imperial Valley farm water to San Diego. Strictly speaking, it is not, though the effect is the same.

Imperial would sell water to the MWD and the MWD would then sell an equal amount of water to San Diego.

San Diego County has agreed to pay part of the cost of delivering the water through the MWD’s network of aqueducts, and the state has pledged $235 million to pay for the rest.

The state money would be part of a $1-billion-plus bond measure legislative leaders intend to place on the ballot this November. The bond measure would also include money to improve water quality in Northern California.

The language of the understanding does not address what might happen if voters statewide defeat the bond measure. The state Legislature could allocate the money from the general fund, but the prospect of doing this after a defeat at the polls is not something lawmakers were eager to talk about this week.

San Diego water officials were jubilant. A voice vote by the San Diego County Water Authority was unanimous, capping a 90-minute session peppered with congratulations.

“This is indeed a happy day,” said Harold Ball, a veteran of the water wars.

Christine Frahm, who chairs the San Diego water board, said the agreement “benefits all of Southern California, all of California.”

“We all need to unite behind these water bonds,” Frahm said.

San Diego County had long sought a supply of water that could not be shut off at the whim of the MWD. This proposal would amount to a degree of water independence San Diego County has sought for decades.

Unlike other local water authorities that make up the 27-member MWD, San Diego County has almost no local water supply. County residents consume about 550,000 acre-feet a year, 90% of it from the MWD.

(An acre-foot is approximately equal to the amount of water two families of four consume in a year.)

The MWD has until now had a virtual monopoly on the acquisition of new water supplies for the region.

The county’s attempt to make a deal on its own to acquire Imperial Valley water fractured the normally placid MWD board. The MWD at first objected to the entire notion that San Diego get its own supply, but over time conceded at least the theoretical possibility.

A strong majority of the MWD board insisted, however, that San Diego County pay the full cost of transporting the water through the MWD’s system.

Board members likened it to an especially bitter family feud. The feud erupted into public view on a couple of occasions in the past several years, embarrassing the MWD.

“Money was never the main thing,” one MWD board member said. “This was like your 16-year-old kid getting caught smoking dope in the backyard. San Diego is slurring the family’s good name.”

MWD board Chairman Jack Foley said the agreement was one of the most important ever considered by the agency.

He said he hoped it would “bring the family back together again.”

For such a fractious subject, there was little debate within the Metropolitan board when it came time to vote.

The motion to approve passed by a voice vote of the 51-member board, with the only audible ‘no’ cast by Bonnie Herman, one of seven Los Angeles representatives.

Herman said she voted against the proposal “because I don’t think it’s going to fly with the Legislature or the voters. I would have preferred that the money come from within the family.”

Specifically, Herman said, from the San Diego branch of the family.

As Herman indicated, the proposal still faces considerable obstacles, the state financial contribution foremost.

Spreck Rosekrans, a senior analyst for the state chapter of the Environmental Defense Fund, said his group was likely to oppose the bond measure because of the inclusion of the MWD-San Diego money.

The environmental group has vigorously supported the concept of water transfers as a means of lessening pressure on water supplies, but the state role in funding this transfer “was a back-room deal that sort of slipped past us. If customers of the Metropolitan are going to develop new water sources, we think they ought to pay for it themselves.”