Water woes may follow into next year

Drought conditions could double AV residents' bills

By ALISHA SEMCHUCK
Valley Press Staff Writer

The price for importing water largely will depend on whether it can be purchased from rice farmers north of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta or from water districts that have stored water south of the Delta, said Russ Fuller, general manager for the Antelope Valley-East Kern Water Agency.

AVEK is a water wholesaler that supplies farmers and water retailers like Quartz Hill Water District and Los Angeles County Waterworks District 40.

"If winter '07-08 turns out as dry as '06-07, we're looking at severe cuts," Fuller said Tuesday night at a special agency meeting.

If drought conditions persist, the state Department of Water Resources will be forced to cut water allocations delivered through the California Aqueduct to even less than the 60% allotted to agencies like AVEK for 2007.

The drought was only one part of the dynamic that contributed to this year's situation, as judges also ordered aqueduct pumps shut down to save an indigenous fish called the delta smelt. Environmentalists blamed the pumps for smelt deaths, and the judges agreed.

"Things do not look good as far as the water supply goes for '07-08," Fuller said.

The 60% allocation for 2007 amounts to 84,000 acre-feet, while a total of 77,419 acre-feet of water was ordered by the agency's customers - agricultural plus municipal and industrial users, said AVEK engineer Michael Flood. Actual customer use through the end of June reached 34,662 acre-feet.

An acre-foot equals 328,851 gallons.

While the agency could see a surplus of roughly 6,500 acre-feet this year, the agency doesn't have a place to store water it does not use. Flood said AVEK could possibly "carry over" its excess 2007 allotment to 2008, if state officials allow it to do so.

If the Department of Water Resources cuts the allocation to 55% next year, that would be sufficient to "cover all the orders," Flood said.

While a decrease from 60% allocation to 55% won't hinder any of the Valley's water purveyors, if the allocation drops to 28% - a real possibility - the Valley is in trouble, officials said. If the department drops the allotment to 48%, Flood said, AVEK would "have to do some sort of allocation" - which would mean limiting the amount of water provided to customers. At 28%, that's little more than half the water the agency needs.

That's when water costs skyrocket.

Two types of short-term programs are available for supplemental water in 2008, Fuller said.

Both will cause the price of water to rise, but one will reach deeper into consumers' pockets than the other.

The North-of-the-Delta program, called the 2008 Dry Year Purchase Program, involves an agreement with rice farmers who essentially would sell their agricultural water rather than grow their crop that year.

They would charge somewhere between $100 and $125 an acre-foot.

That would be on top of the agency's existing price of roughly $330 an acre-foot. But water from Northern California must travel through the Delta, where there's a loss factor of 15%, Fuller said. That would drive the cost up an additional 15%.

There's one catch with that plan, according to Fuller. The rice farmers "want 100% of their payment by March 1. If it starts raining like crazy, we have to pay that money anyway. It's like an insurance policy. In years past, this worked well. The problem this year (is) we may not be able to move that water" across the delta, he said. "It's an extra gamble."

Working with the rice farmers could mean a possible 25% hike in the water bill, but there's always the risk of paying but not getting any water.

A surer bet, which would be more expensive, is the short-term program known as the South-of-the-Delta transfer program, which provides water on a one-time basis from water districts that store water in hopes of selling it in dry years.

"Because this water does not travel through the San Joaquin Delta region, it is expected to be more readily available during peak summer months," Fuller said.

The price will "range between $300 and $600 an acre-foot. Those numbers are already out there this year," Fuller said. "All those figures are on top of the normal water rates."

AVEK's $330 an acre-foot wholesale charge will rise to $930 an acre-foot, plus some incidental costs that drive the figure up to $1,000.

Customers of retailers like Quartz Hill Water District or L.A. County Waterworks District 40 will pay the price for that service. Water purveyors estimate the average household of four uses one acre-foot of water each year.

A typical customer in the Quartz Hill Water District uses 293,265 gallons of water a year, slightly less than one acre-foot, according to Julie Bossin, an administrative supervisor for that agency.

The bill for that level of water use currently comes to $43.83 a month. An extra $600 per acre-foot would add about $45 to the monthly bill.

The rate hike is "something we're all going to be faced with because we're all consumers," Bossin said.

"It's expensive, but we live in the desert," Fuller said.

Fuller said these programs must be in place by Jan. 1 - so the agency must decide either to gamble with the North-of-the-Delta plan or to pay the price for going south.

"We've already turned in paperwork saying we're interested in both," Fuller said.

At the regular board meeting Tuesday night, agency officials will discuss the issue further and listen to customer input.

Officials are planning a public hearing to set water rates for Oct. 9.

"There will be deadline dates" to buy into either of the short-term water programs, Fuller said. "If we don't get in by these deadline dates, the cost will go up and the possibility of getting what we need will go down."

asemchuck@avpress.com