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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.

Rates charged by the San Diego County Water Authority to its 24 member agencies in the region will increase 3.7 percent next year, according to a budget approved Thursday by the authority’s Board of Directors. The SDCWA said the rate hike is the smallest in the past decade. The Water Authority collects imported and locally generated water and sends it to local districts — the city of San Diego and Helix Water District, for example – – which sells the water to customers. Any amount of the increase passed on to customers will be determined by the local districts.

The heat wave hitting Southern California this week is one for the record books. Temperatures topped 100 in the valleys and 120 in the low desert. Death Valley hit 127 — seven degrees shy of the hottest temperature ever recorded on the planet. The National Weather Service said temperatures in some low desert locations were “among the highest ever recorded.” The temperature hit 124 degrees on Tuesday in Ocotillo Wells — the highest reading ever recorded in San Diego County, according to the National Weather Service. Forecasters said the reading was two degrees above the previous high of 122, which was recorded in Borrego Springs on June 20, 2016.