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The San Diego County Water Authority – and San Diego ratepayers – were dealt a major legal loss this week that could leave local water customers back on the hook for billions of dollars over the next several decades. For years, San Diego water officials have argued the region’s major supplier of water – the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California – charges too much to deliver water to San Diego from the Colorado River. In 2015, a lower court judge sided with the Water Authority.

Water rates across San Diego County will soon go up after the San Diego County Water Authority (SDCWA) adopted a $1.58 billion budget and a 3.7 percent rate hike during a public hearing Thursday. On May 18, the Water Authority announced it would push for the rate hike for 2018 to its 24 member agencies for both treated and untreated water. The budget for the fiscal years 2018 and 2019 was presented to the Water Authority’s board on May 22, along with the proposal for a rate hike.

Damages awarded to the San Diego County Water Authority in a long-running legal dispute over rates need to be recalculated, a panel of state appellate justices ruled Wednesday.  The ruling by the three-judge panel of the 1st District Court of Appeal in San Francisco amounted to a split decision for the Water Authority, which sued the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California multiple times over the amount it charged the SDCWA to transport imported water from the Colorado River.

 

The next time San Diegans face a proposed water rate increase, the City Council will be getting a second professional opinion about whether the increase is necessary and how large it should be. The change comes after the city approved in late 2015 a series of rate increases totaling nearly 40 percent over four years, including a 6.4 percent hike that will take effect July 1.

A legal ruling that San Diego County water officials said would save customers here up to $7 billion has been overturned. A California appellate court on Wednesday partially reversed a 2015 trial court ruling that awarded the San Diego County Water Authority $234 million in alleged overcharges, interest and legal fees to be paid by longtime legal foes at the Los Angeles-based regional agency known as MWD, or the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California.