Northern California water transfer to Palmdale Water District has a big benefit for Butte County

From the Oroville Mercury Regsiter, the water transfer between Butte County and the Palmdale Water District. Butte County holds rights to more SWP water than it can use, and in previous years was not required to pay for its unused water. However, this year, DWR informed Butte County that they would have to pay for the unused water. At the same time, DWR changed the rules, making it easier for the water to be transferred elsewhere. From the article:

Previously State Water Project contractors, including Butte County, could only sell water within their designated service areas. However, DWR changed the rules to allow contractors to sell water to each other, even outside of the service area. That gave Butte County authority to peddle its allocation elsewhere.

Tuesday, Paul Gosselin, director of the county Water and Resource Department, and assistant director Vickie Newlin, briefed the Board of Supervisors on a proposal to sell the local share. Newlin said her department had received a “letter of intent” from the Palmdale Water District seeking to purchase the county’s water.Just how much water the county would be allowed to sell is dependent on DWR’s water guarantees to its contractors. Late last year, before the arrival of the current rains, DWR predicted it would provide 25 percent of the contractors’ maximum allotment in 2008. If the 25 percent allocation holds for 2008, according to Newlin’s figures, the county could receive $1,437,500 from a deal with Palmdale.

As the percentage of the allocation the county gets grows, the per-acre-foot payment for the water would drop. However the increasing amount of water sold would more than make up the difference. Newlin told the board if the county could sell 100 percent of its water allotment, Butte could receive $4.4 million.

“Although the cost to the county for water year 2009 and future years is still unknown at this time, using the 2008 price as an indicator, the county could meet and exceed its costs for 2008 through 2010 with the revenue generated through the sale” of the water in 2008 and 2009, states a report prepared for the board by Newlin.

To read the full text of this article from the Oroville Mercury Register, click here.

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