San Bernardino Valley's Wholesale Water Agency at Crossroads

By Susan Longville

Board needs to look at two issues: reliance on property taxes for SWP costs AND sale of imported water to Los Angeles

They believed that their own wholesale water agency, the San Bernardino Valley Municipal Water District (Valley District) formed in 1954, could do a better job providing supplemental water to augment our local supplies (mostly groundwater).

History has proved the voters right. Since 1972, Valley District has imported water from the State Water Project to stabilize local basin water levels, and performed a variety of other essential services. Its success meant local retail water agencies were able to deliver drinking water to the ever-growing number of homes and businesses in the San Bernardino Valley, from Rialto on the west all the way to Yucaipa on the east.

But Valley District is at a crossroads today. The Board of Directors needs to look at two troubling issues: its reliance on property taxes for costs of the State Water Project in light of costly Delta improvements, and its sale of imported water to Los Angeles.

Valley District residents are paying 100% of the required costs of the State Water Project through property taxes. Only five other water districts in California, out of 29, rely entirely on property taxes. The current property tax rate is $162.50 per $100,000 in assessed value, meaning a homeowner with a median-price home of $250,000 paid $406.25 last year to Valley District.

Valley District is exempt from 1978's Proposition 13, and the State says it has the legal authority to raise property taxes to pay for the most expensive water project in California history, without a vote of the people, because it is an expansion of the State Water Project voters approved in 1960.

District officials have said that the proposed $25 billion twin tunnels project (also called Bay Delta Conservation Plan or BDCP solution) needs to be built as soon as possible. Water leaders throughout Southern California agree that imported water supplies remain at risk until the tunnels, or something like it, are built. A final decision is expected next year.

How residents in Valley District pay for it is a huge financial decision that could cost individual property taxpayers hundreds of dollars each year.

Just this summer, when the wholesale water agency that serves the San Jose area discussed raising property taxes for the expansion in this manner, the San Diego Union-Tribune, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the San Jose Mercury News all editorialized about what a bad idea this was. The Mercury News noted that their local district was not alone: "Major water agencies in California are quietly considering using property taxes -- and possibly raising them without a vote of the public -- to fund Governor Brown's $25 billion plan to build two massive tunnels through the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta."

Valley District Board of Directors needs to provide "a vote of the people" for residents to decide how they want to pay for something of this magnitude. Whether it's increasing property taxes or raising wholesale water prices, it will affect generations to come.

Most Valley District residents have friends in neighboring communities served by MWD who pay property taxes for only 8 to 10% of State Water Project costs. Their retail water agencies pay more for wholesale water -- and those costs are passed along to consumers. But residents and businesses can make choices about conserving water and as a result, can lower monthly bills.

The Board of Directors also needs to consider whether to continue the sale of imported water to Los Angeles until basin levels fully recover. Today, the "depth to groundwater" levels in the San Bernardino Basin are beneath the historic low of 1964 (eight years before Valley District began importing water to help keep our basin stable) and the basin is 550,000 acre-feet below the level that is considered full.

The San Bernardino Valley Coordinated Operating Agreement with the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California was signed in 2000. Valley District described the agreement, with great fanfare, as an opportunity to sell imported water that sometimes we didn't need here in our valley; and the sales would provide revenue for essential services. MWD describes the agreement somewhat differently, as providing "for the annual purchase of 20,000 AF [acre-feet] with the option to purchase additional water up to 30,000 acre-feet when available."

MWD's Annual Reports reveal that Valley District has sold Los Angeles 120,000 acre-feet of our water between 2007 and 2013 -- 50,000 acre-feet in 2013 alone. According to the California Department of Water Resources, Valley District purchased less than 470,000 acre-feet of imported water from the State Water Project in the last decade (2003 through 2012).

In the last seven years, Valley District has sold MWD 25% of all the water it bought from the State Water Project in the last decade while our own basin fell to a historic low. The quantity sold in just the last three years exceeds 29 billion gallons, which is 2 billion gallons less than all the water conserved throughout the State in August in August--enough water to supply a half-million people for a year.

In both these matters, it is a simply a matter of what is fair and what is right. And it is time for the Board of Directors to make some tough decisions.