It’s time to rethink the Monterey Agreements, says editorial
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on December 7, 2007 at 8:59 amFrom Santa Clarita’s Signal, a column from local environmentalist Lynne Plambeck, who discusses local water supply issues and the Monterey Agreements. Lynne writes:
How does the State Water Project work? Snowfall from the Sierra Nevada Mountains moves through a system of natural rivers and dams into the Sacramento Delta. From there, huge pumps lift the water into the California Aqueduct for delivery south.
So to the first problem: If it doesn’t snow in the Sierra, there is no water to deliver to the south. With increasing concerns over global warming, this scenario appears more and more likely. Planners have tried to address it by building reservoirs and groundwater-banking facilities, but also by urging Southern Californians to realize they live in a desert and must conserve water.
The state also requires local agencies to calculate how much water they receive based on a model of past deliveries. While the current model is based on the last 72 years of weather patterns, there is evidence that far greater periods of prolonged drought have occurred in the past. However, this evidence is not considered in the model, causing some experts to worry about the future accuracy of the model projections.
Reliability of water supply is a major concern of planners, and while communities can take steps to increase reliability of supply - by building reservoirs or storing water in a local aquifer or water bank, but if these supplies are not replenished, they will be depleted. The Monterey Agreements deal with how water is divided between urban agencies & agricultural uses in drought years:
In 1995, several of the State Water Project contractors got together in a closed-door meeting in Monterey to negotiate changes to their contracts. The required environmental review document for this agreement was set aside by a court in 2000 in a landmark water case, Planning and Conservation League vs. Deptment of Water Resources. Now the Deptment of Water Resources has finally completed the required new Environmental Impact Report, just as many of the environmental effects that conservation groups feared for the Delta have indeed come to pass.
Perhaps it is time to take another look at this agreement, especially the “Urban Preference” clause. Prior to the Monterey Amendments, the Department of Water Resources was required to allocate water to urban areas first, forcing farmers to fallow their fields. Since most fields that depended then on state water were planted with annual row crops that could easily be delayed for a year, this clause was an important way to get more water to cities in times of severe drought such as we experienced in 1991.
But that clause was eliminated behind closed doors in Monterey, without public input, making the division of state water 50 percent to farmers and 50 percent to cities. Our own Castaic Lake Water Agency was one of the chief supporters and signatories to this agreement.
Hearings on the Monterey Agreement are now being conducted throughout the state, with one just held in Ventura last Tuesday. There is also an opportunity to comment on the new environmental documents through Jan. 13. If you want more information on the Monterey Agreement, just visit the Deptment of Water Resources Web site at www.water.ca.gov. There you will find all the information, including the EIR on line for the public. No closed doors this time!
To read the full text of this editorial from the Santa Clarita Signal, click here.
Public hearings to begin on Monterey Amendments
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on December 2, 2007 at 7:26 amFrom the California Progress Report:
Next week the Department of Water Resources (DWR) will hear from the public on whether or not to eliminate a drought safeguard for over 20 million Californians.
Millions of Californians now receive a portion of their water supply from the State Water Project (SWP). As part of the original agreement to purchase SWP water, these Californians were given priority for water deliveries during times of drought or shortage. However, in 1995, the State and a handful of SWP contractors attempted to amend the SWP contracts. As part of those negotiations, the urban safeguard was eliminated from the water contracts. As a result, urban areas are at greater risk of water cutbacks during droughts.
Fortunately, the amendments have not been adopted permanently. As part of a lawsuit by PCL and two other plaintiffs, the State was forced to do an Environmental Impact Report (EIR) on the effects of the proposed amendments and present that EIR to the public for full review. After responding to all public comments, DWR must decide whether to adopt the original amendments, including elimination of the urban safeguard. Alternatively, DWR could choose to implement other water management strategies that would better serve California.
These amendments are called the “Monterey Amendments”, and you can have an opportunity to comment on them. Click here to read the full text of this article from California Progress Report, with listings of public hearings on this issue. To read the EIR, and for more information on the Monterey Amendments, click here.
Monterey Amendments would give away state water resources, says the Planning & Conservation League
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on October 28, 2007 at 7:21 amFrom the California Progress Report:
Despite the recent crisis in the Delta and the Governor’s push for new dams, last week the Department of Water Resources (DWR) proposed to give away the largest water storage facility in the state and to eliminate drought safeguards for urban areas in California.
DWR’s draft decision, revealed in the Monterey Plus Environmental Impact Report (EIR), would require the State to adopt amendments to the State Water Project (SWP) contract, called the “the Monterey Amendments,” negotiated in secret by DWR in 1994. The original behind-closed-doors deal was successfully challenged in a lawsuit by the Planning and Conservation League, the Citizens Planning Association of Santa Barbara, and Plumas County Flood Control and Water Conservation District (Planning and Conservation League v. Department of Water Resources (2000) 83 Cal.App.3d). While DWR has been allowed to operate under the Monterey Amendments provisionally since 1995, the PCL lawsuit forced DWR to analyze the impacts of the amendments and to decide whether or not permanently to adopt the Monterey Amendments based on that analysis.
If permanently adopted, the Monterey Amendments would fundamentally change how the State Water Project operates.
To read the rest of this article from Gary Patton of the Planning & Conservation League, as posted on the California Progress Report, click here.
The Monterey Amendments: eliminating drought safeguards for urban areas, says the PCL
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on October 27, 2007 at 6:23 amFrom the Planning & Conservation League, this press release:
Despite the recent crisis in the Delta and the Governor’s push for new dams, last week the Department of Water Resources (DWR) proposed to give away the largest water storage facility in the state and to eliminate drought safeguards for urban areas in California.
DWR’s draft decision, revealed in the Monterey Plus Environmental Impact Report (EIR) (http://www.des.water.ca.gov/mitigation_restoration_branch/rpmi_section/projects/index.cfm), would require the State to permanently adopt State Water Project contract amendments, called the “the Monterey Amendments,” negotiated in secret by DWR in 1994. The original behind closed doors deal was successfully challenged in a lawsuit by the Planning and Conservation League, the Citizens Planning Association of Santa Barbara, and Plumas County Flood Control and Water Conservation District (Planning and Conservation League v. Department of Water Resources (2000) 83 Cal.App.3d). While DWR has been allowed to operate under the Monterey Amendments provisionally since 1995, the PCL lawsuit forced DWR to analyze the impact of the amendments and to decide whether or not permanently to adopt the Monterey Amendments or to modify the proposed contract changes based on that analysis. Read more