Water Report Favors Growth

In a move hailed by builders but decried by slow-growth advocates, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California has concluded that the region has enough water to accommodate expected growth in the next two decades.

The report, released this week, was prompted by new laws requiring that an assured water supply be available before large-scale subdivisions are approved by local governments. The water district’s conclusion, however, is based on a number of assumptions that others dispute--for example, that Southern California will continue to get surplus water from the Colorado River for at least the next 15 years.

Other states that depend on the Colorado have made it clear that they won’t allow California to continue drawing water at the present rate indefinitely.

Steve Zimmer, vice president of the Valencia-based Newhall Ranch and Farming Co., developer of Newhall Ranch, the largest residential project in Los Angeles County history, said the report will not end the political fights over growth in Southern California. On the other hand, Zimmer said, the report may take away water as “a trump card” for advocates of slow growth.

The largest wholesale supplier of water in the nation, the MWD serves a 5,200-square-mile area with 17 million residents that stretches from Oxnard to the border of Mexico and from the coast to the Inland Empire.

Don Kendall, general manager of the Calleguas Municipal Water District in Ventura County, said he plans to meet soon with developers to discuss the MWD report. Large developments are pending in Simi Valley and Moorpark.

“The development community has been coming to us and asking whether there is water sufficiency,” Kendall said. “This report goes a long way toward proving that there is water to help us meet our housing needs.”

But Elden Hughes, an official with the Sierra Club, said the water district’s optimistic predictions are based on projects that are environmentally damaging, including one that would remove water from an aquifer beneath the Mojave Desert.

“You shouldn’t bet your future on the dead bodies of endangered species,” Hughes said.

And Daniel Patterson, a biologist with the Tucson-based Center for Biological Diversity, said that MWD, in banking on a proposed sale of water from Imperial County to San Diego, wants to “shift water from alfalfa to urban sprawl.”

MWD Chief Executive Ron Gastelum said the agency is not trying to influence local land-use decisions. But, he added, “For us to deny that there is water denies our mandate,” under state law, to provide water for local water agencies to supplement their own supplies.

The report says that programs to conserve water and acquire new sources of water provide “a very high degree of reliability” that the water supply will be bolstered at least a decade in advance of increased demand.

And if all the proposed water projects by the district and local agencies come to fruition, reliability of water “could be assured beyond 20 years,” the report says.

Randele Kanouse, a lobbyist for the East Bay Municipal Utility District in Northern California, who waged a 10-year battle to win passage of bills tying growth to water supplies, said he has not yet studied the MWD report and cannot comment on its methodology.

“I’m thrilled to death if they can show that there is water available before homes are constructed,” Kanouse said. “The effort of this legislation was never to shut down growth but to encourage an honest discussion about water and the likelihood of supplies being adequate.”

Law Resulted From Development Battle

Kanouse said that planning reviews of housing projects often contained only a few sentences on water supplies. “Those kinds of reviews were total frauds,” he said.

The MWD had remained neutral on bills written by Sen. Sheila Kuehl (D-Santa Monica) and Sen. Jim Costa (D-Fresno) that require assurance of water supplies.

The bills were opposed by the Assn. of California Water Agencies, which represents 435 farming and urban water districts, for fear that water agencies would be unfairly thrust into the middle of growth controversies.

The legislation was an outgrowth of the battle over the Newhall Ranch project, a proposed 21,600-home subdivision just east of Fillmore.

In May 2000, in a decision with few precedents, a Superior Court judge voided the county’s approval of the project because planners had not adequately studied whether the county had enough water for the projected 70,000 new residents.

The project was sent back to the county Planning Commission for review.

It is now snared in a legal dispute involving the Castaic Lake Water Agency’s rights to 41,000 acre-feet of water from Kern County. The Newhall Ranch site is outside the MWD service area.

Industry Official Calls Study Helpful

The Newhall Ranch battle--and a similar fight over an 11,000-home development in Contra Costa County--helped galvanize support for the Costa and Kuehl bills. Gov. Gray Davis signed the legislation at the end of last year’s session.

Steve LaMarr, Orange County-based chairman of the water resources task force for the statewide Building Industry Assn., praised the MWD study and said he hopes local water agencies do their own studies to dispel the notion that the region lacks water for growth.

“This is very helpful for us,” LaMarr said. “We want people to look at the facts.”

Patterson, of the Center for Biological Diversity, said the report’s assumptions are faulty.

“This report is very premature,” Patterson said. “The [San Diego-Imperial Valley deal] is far from being finalized and is going to be challenged.”