Imperial Valley farmers must find new and innovative ways to still grow their products while living within the parameters of the QSA; it just has to happen; there is no other way, says editorial
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on August 21, 2008 at 7:42 amAn editorial in the Imperial Valley Press this morning agrees with the IID’s decision to declare a supply-demand imbalance (water shortage) for this year. IID is on track to overrun it’s allocation of Colorado River water by 105,000 acre-feet by the end of the year.
Last year, the IID declared a supply-demand imbalance, but that was wiped away by significant rainfall; it is not likely to occur again. The rationing program was then made to be voluntary and would be tried as a test run, but failed due to lack of enough farmers signing up to participate. From the editorial:
The program’s failure stemmed from disagreements between the farm community and IID over how the equitable distribution of water would occur. IID wanted a straight-line method in which farmers were allotted so many acre-feet of water per acre farmed. Some in the farming community, however, wanted the water divvied up based off historical usage.
Now, with the SDI already declared, IID must restart the process to find an agreeable method of water-rationing, and that process will start in the next few weeks when the first workshops begin.
No matter what method is decided upon, something has to give in the way farmers use water on a daily basis. The projected overrun is such that the SDI isn’t likely to be canceled, as it was last year. Farmers must find new and innovative ways to still grow their products while living within the parameters of the QSA. It just has to happen; there is no other way.
Water rationing isn’t something to be taken lightly, but it is something that probably should have started years ago, at least in the sense of getting a head start on finding common ground between water users and the IID.
This will be an important next few months in trying to establish a water-rationing program. We hope it can be done civilly and effectively. More importantly, we hope it can be done at all … period.
Read more from the Imperial Valley Press by clicking here.
Imperial Irrigation District declares water shortage
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on August 20, 2008 at 6:17 am
From the Imperial Valley Press:
It’s a harsh reality being faced by farmers across the state as some are forced to abandon their crops due to the water shortage plaguing California.
The Imperial Irrigation District is not immune to the effects of living within the restrictions of water transfers and the local enormous agricultural water demand. There will not be enough water in 2009, district officials said.
A shortage was declared by the board unanimously Tuesday, serving as a warning to those most affected by the supply-demand imbalance that change is on the horizon. “We have to recognize we can’t continue on this way,” said IID Director Mike Abatti. “It’s not healthy.”
The district is already on track to exceed its water allotment by 105,000 acre-feet this year as thirsty lucrative crop prices have soared, stretching the water budget past the limit.
“That’s not good news for the district,” said Carlos Villalon, IID assistant Water Department manager.
IID is living in a new era, said IID board President John Pierre Menvielle, as it tries to manage the water transfer requirements and fuel the billion-dollar agriculture industry. Agriculture accounts for 97 percent of IID’s district-wide water usage.
Read more from the Imperial Valley Press by clicking here.
Rationing rears its head at Imperial Irrigation District; IID estimates overrun of it’s 3.1 million acre-feet allotment to be 112,000 acre-feet
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on August 18, 2008 at 6:40 amFrom the Imperial Valley Press:
Water rationing will, again, be at the forefront of the Imperial Irrigation District’s meeting Tuesday.
The 3.1 million acre-feet of water allotted to the IID from the Colo-rado River every year is just not enough. Al-though only a projection, the district is estimated to overrun its share by 112,000 acre-feet in 2008, up an additional 12,000 from the 100,000 acre-feet overrun projected last month.
IID spokesman Kevin Kelley said the district has a 65 percent chance of exceeding its allotment this year. This overrun will likely cause the district to declare a supply-demand imbalance.
If declared, a supply-demand imbalance will be cause to implement a water-rationing system within the Imperial Valley. The rationing system, or equitable distribution, would take effect Jan. 1, and the loss, if there is any, would have to be made up to the Colorado River by 2010.
More from the Imperial Valley Press by clicking here.
All American Canal lining is added threat
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on August 2, 2008 at 7:23 amFrom the Imperial Valley Press:
The roar of the water rushing through the gates is only muted by the gravel crunched beneath the tires of a U.S. Customs and Border Protection vehicle navigating the banks along the rushing canal. In the murky green waters below, abandoned rafts and tire tubes bob in the water, caught in a red buoy line strung across the All-American Canal. The occupants of the rafts, most likely Mexican nationals searching for a way to penetrate the desolate border here, are gone.
They might have found a way out of the water safely. But if they entered the canal a few miles to the east the worst-case scenario, John Hunter said, is that they lost their lives by drowning in what he views to be a giant death trap.
“There’s no redeeming features to drowning Mexicans or law enforcement,” Hunter, of San Diego, said. “They cannot be allowed to die like dogs.”
The dangers of the All-American Canal are indisputable, officials said. More than 500 people have died in the last 35 years, and according to published reports, just this year at least five suspected illegal immigrants have lost their lives or disappeared beneath the placid surface of the water.
Now it poses an additional threat as newly constructed portions of the All-American have steeper sides and the concrete lining could be nearly impossible to scale. The water will gush faster through the channel, making the current even swifter. More people will die, Hunter claims.
After years of debate, the Imperial Irrigation District board is starting to side with Hunter and is urging San Diego County Water Authority to add more safety features to the project that is meant to conserve water for transfer to the coast.
“Sitting up here, we can do something about it,” IID Director Mike Abatti said at a recent board meeting. “It should be safer. It’s going to be here another 100 years.”
Read more from the Imperial Valley Press by clicking here.
Water wars: Imperial Group ‘knights on white horses’
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on July 27, 2008 at 10:07 amFrom the Imperial Valley Press:
He alternates between punctuating his sentences with a bang of a wooden gavel in his left palm and scratching his back with a pocket knife. Behind him, a photo of his son smiling with presidential candidate Sen. John McCain is taped next to the white board where he has scrawled dates and names.
This is how it went wrong, Mike Morgan said.
The timeline lays out a tangled web of Morgan’s allegations of corruption at the Imperial Irrigation District, backdoor dealings and political moves over the last 20 years that culminated with the Quantification Settlement Agreement.
Morgan likens the water users of the district to serfs in an overblown hierarchy. And the Imperial Group is the “knights on white horses trying to win for the good of the people,” Morgan said.
Morgan and more than 60 farmers and landowners have spent untold amounts of money fighting that 75-year water transfer for the last five years in court. Those interviewed declined to specify exactly how much. In turn, the cost to defend the QSA and All-American Canal litigation totals more than $6 million since 2003.
Those farmers and landowners became known as the Imperial Group, a veritable who’s who of the powerful long-standing agricultural business families who have made millions growing the nation’s food. Sprawling acres of bountiful wheat, vegetables and fruit are planted across the Valley along miles of roads that bear their family names.
Elmore, Morgan, Strahm, Scaroni, Rutherford, Emanuelli, Brundy, Foster, Cox and dozens more families and businesses have sued the district over the water transfer, and the arguments made in public at the IID board meetings have always boiled down to one thing time and time again.
Who controls the water? “What saves the water in the Imperial Valley is IID; not one single landowner owns the water,” IID Director Mike Abatti said.
The Imperial Group says it’s been characterized as villains by IID, but the group believes they have the valley’s best interests in mind:
The Imperial Group argues the QSA negotiations became out of control and IID’s agreement with San Diego County Water Authority, Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, and Coachella Valley Water District is not in the best interest of the agriculture industry that funnels $1.3 billion into the local economy annually.
It puts every farmer at risk, Osterkamp said. “We were told the QSA was a good deal. Farmers had to take it on faith,” Osterkamp said.
IID contends that because the water is held in trust by the district, the Imperial Group’s argument is arbitrary. Five years in, the district still struggles to live within the new limits of the how much it is allotted on the Colorado River. With a statewide drought declared by the governor and the emphasis placed on water transfers between districts, IID officials have said the QSA is a measure of protection.
“We’re living on the edge of trying to transfer water,” Menvielle said. “We struggle to fulfill our commitments. We’re going to need every drop of water we have here.”
Read the rest of this story from the Imperial Valley Press by clicking here.
Water issues split families, farm community in the Imperial Valley
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on July 27, 2008 at 9:44 amFrom Imperial Valley Press:
When his father asked him to come back later that afternoon, Larry Cox had a sense it was to have a final heart-to-heart talk.
It was two years ago when Don Cox, a farmer and former Imperial Irrigation District director, asked his son to return to his home where he was in his last days of battling cancer. As the afternoon gave way to the evening, Larry prepared himself to hear what his father had to say. He sat on the coffee table across from his father’s chair.
“I’m thinking we’re going to have this father-son talk. And he says, ‘Son, I want to talk to you,’” Larry said, pausing for a moment. “‘I want to talk to you about water. You need to settle these lawsuits.’”
Just 36 hours later, his father died. It was their last conversation.
It wasn’t the first time the Cox family has been divided by water issues. They talked about it all the time. It’s one example of how the politics of water have penetrated the farming community and continues to cause issues today. “It has divided the farm community to a degree,” Cox said. “I have a lot of friends who don’t want to get involved, who don’t want to fight the fight. It’s not a priority.”
Cox is a member of the Imperial Group, which is made up of dozens of farmers and landowners against the IID’s water transfer to the coast.
Lawsuits filed by the Imperial Group and others related to the Quantification Settlement Agreement and lining of the All-American Canal have cost the district more than $6 million in litigation costs since 2003, and the Imperial Group will not reveal how much it has spent battling IID on the issue.
Mike Morgan said since his great-grandfather arrived in the Valley in 1906, water has been a contentious issue. “He was always concerned when the IID was formed because in his mind it had become a huge bureaucracy,” Morgan said.
Read more from the Imperial Valley Press by clicking here.
IID using too much water, again
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on July 23, 2008 at 7:41 amFrom the Imperial Valley Press:
There is no question whether the Imperial Irrigation District will exceed its water allotment for the year, officials said. But by how much and at what cost has yet to be seen.
IID Water Manager Mike King said the district is projected to be 108,000 acre-feet more than what is allowed from its rights on the Colorado River.
By this time last year the board had already declared a supply-demand imbalance that would have set into motion a system of water rationing had it not been revoked. “July is our highest month of water use. We’re hoping to see that (projected overrun) drop,” King said. King said if the current conditions persist, the district will exceed its allotment by an estimated 60,000 to 70,000 acre-feet by year’s end.
Last year the board declared a supply-demand imbalance in early June. Living within the limitations of the Colorado River allotment and the pairing of high prices for wheat in the commodities market has pushed the district over the line, King said. As the year ended, unexpected rainfall led the district to being less than 10,000 acre-feet over its share.
Director James Hanks said that with the district already exceeding the conditions that caused them to declare a supply-demand imbalance last year, it’s time to act now. “We need to look at declaring another shortage,” Hanks said. “The next go-round won’t be a pilot (program). It’ll be the real McCoy.”
Read the rest of this article from the Imperial Valley Press by clicking here.
Imperial Irrigation District projects water overrun
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on July 9, 2008 at 7:41 amFrom the Imperial Valley Press Online:
The Imperial Irrigation District’s projected water usage continues to swell thousands of acre-feet over its allotment for the year.
Water Manager Mike King said Tuesday the district is estimated to overrun its share of the Colorado River by 100,000 acre-feet so far. At this time last year, a projected overrun of 75,000 acre-feet led the IID board to declare a supply-demand imbalance that was later rescinded as the overrun diminished.
One farmer approached the Board of Directors with a whiteboard and asked that the board keep track publicly of the district’s use and projected overrun. “We have to get control of this over usage,” Craig Elmore of Brawley said.
With the snow pack completely melted and no longer flowing into the Lower Colorado River Basin, the board will have to decide whether to declare a supply-demand imbalance for next year soon. Declaring a supply-demand imbalance would trigger a water-rationing program for agriculture users in the Imperial Valley.
Whether that will be necessary remains to be seen. “We’ve got a long way to go before we’re done,” King said of this year’s water demands.
Read more from the Imperial Valley Press by clicking here.
Holtville’s artesian wells are bust, not boon
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on July 3, 2008 at 7:53 amFrom the Imperial Valley Press:
Between a credit union parking lot and a crumbling laundry room for a dilapidated apartment building is a flow of Valley liquid gold. It’s an unlikely site to find a stream of clear water, bubbling to the surface from hundreds of feet below. It could be transformed into an oasis in the desert, a spring of artesian water to be bottled or a source of ever-flowing need in a statewide drought. But for now, it’s a city nuisance.
In the last couple of months an artesian well east of Holtville’s city square in an inconspicuous gravel alley has erupted into a producer of an estimated 14,000 gallons a day. Although the well is not unique, there are six known sites believed to be tapped into the same aquifer. Recent seismic activity made it overflow.
The alley was flooded as city staff replaced a 1-inch drainage pipe with a 4-inch pipe to handle the additional flow. “It definitely increased after the earthquakes but we don’t have any kind of scientific data,” Holtville Public Works manager Gerry Peacher said. Since a series of earthquakes in May, the output has nearly quadrupled, Peacher estimated.
And it shows no sign of stopping.
Read the full text of this article from the Imperial Valley Press by clicking here.
Site chosen for managed marsh project to be implemented as part of QSA
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on June 26, 2008 at 7:57 am
From the Imperial Valley Press:
After several years of delay, a proposed site has been chosen for the Imperial Irrigation District’s managed marsh project. This week the IID board voted to select land owned by the district to implement a component of the controversial 2003 Quantification Settlement Agreement. IID General Manager Brian Brady said the site chosen, east of the Salton Sea and north of Calipatria, is the least productive farmland among the sites considered.
The zoning designation on the land also allows for mixed use, and geothermal exploration in the area would still be possible, Brady said.
“This is an important component of the QSA,” Brady said. The 75-year water pact that has seen conserved water transferred to the coast from the Imperial Valley continues to be fought in a state court.
Meanwhile, conservation efforts must go forward, officials said. Brady said if the project were not built, it would leave the IID vulnerable to giving up more water to the metropolitan areas.
Director Mike Abatti raised questions as to where the water would come from, it’s location, and if the project should even be started at all, citing pending litigation:
Abatti submitted comments to Tina Shields, assistant Water Department manager, earlier this year on the project and noted he believed it was premature to implement components of the QSA “while the QSA is still being litigated.”
Abatti also cited concerns about where the water is going to come from and suggested the project should use land that is not being farmed.
Abatti said he is using reclaimed wastewater, and that tailwater for the project should be an option instead of stretching the district’s shrinking water allocation.
The volume of water to be used, Hanks said, is still an issue if it is not reclaimed for other use. “It’s time to look at reclamation,” Hanks said. “If people (on the coast) see 15,000 to 20,000 acre-feet being used in a marshland, they may question where we’re headed.”
Read the full text of this article from the Imperial Valley Press by clicking here.
IID ahead of drought curve; QSA seen as protection: “The QSA puts us in a really safe place,” says official
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on June 7, 2008 at 9:03 amFrom the Imperial Valley Press:
The declaration of a statewide drought this week has prompted water agencies to take action in imposing rationing and campaigns to conserve. It came as no surprise to Imperial Irrigation District officials who said Friday it is ahead of the curve when it comes to conservation.
But as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger ordered immediate action to be taken by the Department of Water resources, among them is the facilitation of one thing IID officials have vowed never to do again: water transfers.
IID Legal Counsel Jeff Garber said Friday that the district’s participation in the controversial 2003 water pact, the Quantification Settlement Agreement, is the shelter from the water storm. “The QSA protects us from being attacked by some of the other agencies. It’s a shield for the next 45 to 75 years,” Garber said. “The QSA puts us in a really safe place.”
With the largest agriculture-to-urban water transfer already under way, IID General Manager Brian Brady said though transfers were emphasized by Schwarzenegger as a way to meet water needs in dry areas, IID is already on track. “There are major conservation elements in the QSA which IID is obligated to meet. We’re committed to capturing those conservation benefits,” Brady said.
The Imperial County Farm Bureau said that although the impact of drought in other parts of the state has not yet been felt in Imperial County, that could change over time. Crops abandoned or not produced in the San Joaquin Valley could put more pressure on Imperial County to make up the shortfall.
The Metropolitan Water District, a partner in the QSA, has already begun drawing on its reserve supplies to meet its needs. In the weeks to come the overarching Southern California district is ramping up conservation efforts in the six counties it serves. “We are rapidly entering a new and worrisome water era, highlighted by a record dry spring,” Timothy Brick, chairman of the MWD board of directors said. “There is no guarantee Southern California can replenish reserve supplies whenever this drought cycle ends.”
IID officials said although the drought declaration may bring knocks on the door, the board has vowed not to partake in future water transfers. The QSA, Brady said, is a critical component of protecting IID’s allotment of the Colorado River, among the top priorities of the state, from urban use. “The governor’s declaration puts an exclamation point on the importance of and the benefits of the QSA,” Brady said.
However, a pilot program for conservation attracted only 20 volunteers, rendering it useless. Brady said it is not indicative of Imperial Valley farmers willingness to conserve and that IID needed to reevaluate it’s outreach efforts.
Whether the drought in the state and the Colorado River basin will eventually stretch IID’s allotment to its limits remains to be seen. “Even with our strong water rights, there are no guarantees. Everyone is going to have to do their part to deal with this issue — the farmers, the cities, the politicians and even the environment,” Rothfleisch said.
Read the full text of this article from the Imperial Valley Press by clicking here.
Salton Sea air still up in air; there is concern for air quality in the region as the shoreline recedes
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on May 28, 2008 at 6:33 am
From the Imperial Valley Press:
The future restoration of the Salton Sea is a $9 billion question mark in the hands of the state. Last week a bill that would have established the governance for the Salton Sea Restoration Council died on the state Senate floor for lack of a vote.
The Imperial Irrigation District Board of Directors heard from an environmental attorney Tuesday on the implications of air-quality issues along the receding shoreline.
Ellen Spellman, whose firm is contracted by the district to oversee the 2003 Quantification Settlement Agreement legalities, spoke about liability, emissions and restoration. Spellman said environmental studies have shown the exposure of the shoreline is inevitable but predicting what kind of emissions will be mixed into the air is unknown. “This is an area of great uncertainty,” Spellman said.
Air quality in the Imperial County already has difficulty meeting state and federal standards, and the eventual shrinking of the Salton Sea is only bound to make things worse:
An estimated 45,000 acres will be exposed in the next 70 years due to the transfer of water and the diminishing inflows to the sea. Determining who is legally liable for the emissions, Spellman told the board, will depend on why the shoreline receded. “IID is responsible for mitigating air quality impacts from shoreline exposed by the transfer,” Spellman said.
Read the full text of this story from the Imperial Valley Press by clicking here.
IID not quite ready to implement Garcia’s compromise 6 point-plan
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on May 28, 2008 at 6:09 amFrom the Imperial Valley Press:
The Imperial Irrigation District board delayed implementing the six-point plan reached with Assemblywoman Bonnie Garcia, on Tuesday. At the urging of the Energy Consumer Advisory Committee, the board tabled the plan until the organization can make some recommendations on the compromise.
The ECAC, which will be reconstituted as part of the agreement, discussed the energy action plan. “It’s time for her to back away and allow the ECAC to discuss a long-term plan,” said Gil Perez, a member of the committee.
There seems to be some confusion about representation on the committee, which is to be reformed as a result of the compromise. The committee wants more time to make it’s recommendations:
“We strongly believe there is a lot of merit in the six-point plan,” Perez said. “But there is room for improvement.” A subcommittee of the ECAC is scheduled to work on recommendations before the board’s next meeting in La Quinta on June 10.
“Clearly she is concerned about allowing the community to become more involved in the IID policy development. So we believe she should also be able to detect the basic hypocrisy of denying community input in a plan designed to get more community input,” Perez said.
Read the full text of this article from the Imperial Valley Press by clicking here.
IID’s fallowing program falls short
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on May 23, 2008 at 6:36 amFrom the Imperial Valley Press:
With the rising prices of commodities, the Imperial Irrigation District has found itself competing against the market for water. IID Water Manager Mike King said the number of acres that will be left idle in the next year to conserve water for transfer is about 5,000 acre-feet short.
The district raised the incentives for fallowing this year for farmers to $85 an acre-foot in order to entice more to participate. “We knew this year we would be competing against the wheat,” King said. “I’ve heard the wheat prices are good next year. We’re going to look at what we can do to the fallowing program to overhaul it.”
As part of the 2003 Quantification Settlement Agreement, fallowing fields is used in part to meet the water transfer requirements. Fallowing is scheduled to be phased out by on-farm conservation and water saving efforts by 2018. Until then volunteers are sought each year to fallow and the same land cannot be fallowed more than two years in a row.
King said an average of 50 percent of those who apply for the fallowing program eventually turn the contract down. “Part of it is due to the adjustment we make on the trending analysis,” King said. The analysis looks at the usage of water on the field in the last three years. “They think they’re going to get paid more so they pull out,” he added.
With summer quickly approaching, King informed the board last week that the district might have to declare a supply demand imbalance next year if water conditions persist.
IID is estimated to have an overrun of 75,000 acre-feet this year. Last year similar estimates were predicted but the actual overrun was minimal.
IID board Director James Hanks said it’s an indication that the district will have to get more water from conservation to meet the transfer requirements. “I think we’re going to have to move towards on-farm conservation sooner than expected,” Hanks said.
Read the full text of this story from the Imperial Valley Press by clicking here.
Idle land brings hard times to the Imperial Valley
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on May 18, 2008 at 6:41 am
From the Imperial Valley Press:
Over the years the acreage of Robert Slaton’s family farm has been pared down. Now less than 100 acres behind his home is what amounts to the hay field, adding to the work he gets as a hay cutter and hauler.
But two years ago one of the farmers Slaton depended on for work began fallowing his crops. The work Slaton had was divided with another contractor and reduced to half. Slaton estimated that accounted for about 20 percent of his business last year. “It’s a pretty serious deal,” Slaton said of the impacts of fallowing. “When you’re getting your regular paycheck chopped off … it’s hard.”
Slaton admits he’s a farm service provider on a much smaller scale than some of the other agriculture businesses around the Valley. He spends much of his time taking care of his elderly mother, who has Parkinson’s disease, in between the demands of the family’s operation.
Since fallowing began in the Imperial Valley in 2003, money has been paid to farmers on a per-acre basis to save water for transfer to the coastal cities. And when there are no fields to plow, no seeds to plant and no harvest to reap, farm service providers, workers and the economy are impacted.
This week the Local Entity, tasked to distribute money to farm service providers and noncompetitive grants to mitigate the impacts of fallowing, completed its duty. It took more than two years and one committee reorganization to get it done. The $3.5 million they awarded, however, was only for the first two years of fallowing. The impacts of the last three years have not been mitigated.
“We’re a few years behind the eight ball already. The decision for the board will be to decide where to proceed from here,” IID Legal Counsel Jeff Garber said.
Nicole Rothfleisch, executive director of the Imperial County Farm Bureau, said farm service providers are the most directly impacted by fallowing. “We’re already once again three years behind,” Rothfleisch said. “Farm service providers are losing the business they would have had on that field.”
Read more from the Imperial Valley Press by clicking here.
Imperial Valley’s Local Entity completes its work
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on May 18, 2008 at 6:33 amAs part of the controversial QSA agreement, funds are available for the Imperial Valley to distribute to help mitigate the effects of fallowing, which have a ripple-effect through the agricultural-based community. The Local Entity is the group that was formed to distribute the mitigation funds, which ideally were to go towards development and re-training for those most affected by the fallowing. From the Imperial Valley Press:
The hardest part is over for the Local Entity and it doesn’t look like it will reconvene.
The Imperial Irrigation District board accepted the Local Entity’s recommendations this week in handing out the final dollars it was tasked to dole out. It’s taken several years just to get the first distribution done.
Now the IID board will decide who will be responsible for handing out the rest of the money in the bank and future payouts from the water transfer agreement. “The IID board needs to take over the Local Entity decisions,” IID Board President John Pierre Menvielle said. “We don’t need to put this on the backburner.”
At stake are the funds that are meant to help mitigate the impacts of farmers keeping acres idle to transfer water to the coast. So far only $3.5 million has been spoken for and IID officials estimate by the year’s end there will be $12 million available for farm service providers and organizations to create jobs and training.
Andy Horne, a former IID director and former original Local Entity member, said it may not be wise to have elected officials deciding where the money goes. “The concept of having a community group that doesn’t have any political agendas or pressure on them is sound,” Horne said. “It probably would have functioned better had it not had elected people like myself.”
Read more from the Imperial Valley Press by clicking here.
IID’s board gets report: fallowing needs will be met, but IID is above its allotted amount of Colorado River water
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on May 16, 2008 at 5:30 amFrom KXO Radio, earlier this week, IID ’s Mike King gave the fallowing report to the board:
He said the volume of water for the 2008-09 fallowing program is below the 70,000 acre feet of water needed to comply with the Quantification Settlement Agreement, but he said the difference could be made up. With the contracts finished, King said the fallowing program would result in 68,786-acre feet of water.
Also in his report, King said water use in Imperial is exceeding the allotted amount. He said the IID is still about 12,000 acre-feet above its allotted amount of Colorado River water.
Read more from KXO Radio by clicking here.
IID board tackles how to deal with water rate hike protests, and internal governance issues
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on May 14, 2008 at 6:21 amFrom the Imperial Valley Press:
As the Imperial Irrigation District is undergoing a water rate and cost of service study, questions are being raised over who can protest if rates are raised.
For instance, an apartment building might have one water meter which serves all tenants. How many of them can protest a water hike and how would that be counted?
Abatti proposed a resolution that would give “one written protest per parcel” on any changes in the water fee.
The solution to the issue is just not that simple, Garber said. Proposition 218, that changed the way public notice and counting of protests was done more than 10 years ago, has been litigated in several court cases since then. Garber said the questions over how you notice property owners or tenants who can protest, and how it is all counted still linger for the district. What types of water charges, residential and irrigation use, the law applies to is also in question.
The board eventually voted to table the issue, with a promise from Garber to return with a full set of regulations that would address water rate-setting changes in the next 30 days.
Director James Hanks also pushed for clearer direction on how the board can proceed if it needs to raise rates in the future. “What we’re looking for is who gets the votes and a process the average person can understand,” Hanks said.
Also from the Imperial Valley Press:
Frustrated by projects over budget and a lack of accurate reporting by staff to the board, Imperial Irrigation District director Mike Abatti said things have to change. “We need ethical reporting, we need accurate reporting,” Abatti said.
The proposed change came before the IID Board of Directors in the way of a proposed change to the governance manual adopted nearly a year ago. Since then, the manual has been altered several times. The proposed amendment, brought forward by Abatti, would add a number of duties to the project management office that would oversee capital projects.
The PMO would also report to the general manager but also have a “functional reporting responsibility to the IID board.”
General Manager Brian Brady said though he agrees the amendment included some positive changes to the governance, he asked the board not to take action before he could integrate needed changes into his strategic planning. “The changes are overly broad,” Brady said.
Read the full text of this article from the Imperial Valley Press by clicking here.
Garcia pulls her bill to split the IID
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on May 3, 2008 at 6:46 amFrom the Imperial Valley Press:
A bill that Imperial Irrigation District officials said would have been a detriment to its operation and threatened its resources was pulled Tuesday.
Assemblywoman Bonnie Garcia, R-Cathedral City, reached an agreement with IID to prevent AB 2564 from moving into the preliminary hearing phase scheduled today. The bill could have seen IID energy and water split if Coachella Valley voters made up more than 75 percent of its ratepayers. Currently the Coachella area makes up about 60 percent of IID ratepayers.
With a six-point plan agreed upon, Garcia said the issue of long-term planning has been addressed. “I believe each and every measure contained in the action plan will allow elected officials from both counties to work shoulder-to-shoulder to protect our valuable water and energy resources,” Garcia said.
IID Board President John Pierre Menvielle called the compromise a victory for ratepayers. “The main thing is keeping this thing in local control and working with her to enhance Coachella’s representation,” Menvielle said.
More from the Imperial Valley Press Online by clicking here.
Garcia hopeful for better teamwork between IID & Coachella Valley
Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on May 2, 2008 at 5:43 amFrom the Imperial Valley Press:
Assemblywoman Bonnie Garcia said this week she is confident an agreement reached with the Imperial Irrigation District will lead to more accountability and transparency.
Garcia, R-Cathedral City, pulled the bill she authored that could have seen the district split energy and water if Coachella Valley voters supported it. An agreement was reached with Garcia hours before the bill was to be heard by the local government committee. “That was our goal all along,” Garcia said of the compromise. “Never at any time was it an attempt to dilute the board or move control of the water or energy into anybody else’s hands.”
When reports surfaced of Garcia’s spot bill that was later authored to call for a vote if Coachella customers made up 75 percent of IID’s ratepayers, some called it a resource grab. IID said the legislation would have caused irreparable harm to the district.
Much of the uproar, Garcia said, was caused by the media. “I think that this issue got hijacked by those that would have liked to have seen an adversarial stance on my side or their side,” Garcia said.
The six-point plan includes a long-term energy-planning process set to begin by July 31 and regularly scheduled executive meetings with IID General Manager Brian Brady and elected officials from the Coachella area.
Read more from the Imperial Valley Press by clicking here.
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