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Water officials in San Diego County have come out against a proposed state law that would impose a new monthly fee on all residential and commercial water users in California, to pay for programs that provide access to clean and safe drinking water in communities where water sources are contaminated. Opponents of the legislation have called the proposed fee a “water tax,” while supporters said it is “vitally needed” to deal with a state health crisis.

 

If you wonder why your water bill keeps rising, look no further than the Los Angeles-based Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. More than half of the cost of our water at the San Diego County Water Authority is for paying MWD, whose water rates have doubled over the past decade. That has forced local water providers such as the Water Authority and its 24 member agencies (including the Padre Dam Municipal Water District) to raise their rates significantly.

The backyard of Megan and Don Lowe’s Carlsbad home was a large expanse of lawn that the kids loved. But the grass only looked great for a few months of the year, then dormant and brown the rest of the time. There were several motivations to give the yard a makeover, according to Megan. The kids were getting older and not using the lawn as much, and the Lowes discovered they could take advantage of rebates for turf removal.

Water conservation is already a way of life in San Diego County, and San Diego County Water Authority has a lot to do with that. But an op-ed in Water Deeply by Matt O’Malley of San Diego Coastkeeper didn’t give that impression. The truth is that Coastkeeper and the Water Authority share many goals, such as making our region more resilient to drought, but we sometimes disagree about the best way to accomplish them. Coastkeeper tends to support mandates by state regulators, whereas we advocate for decision-making at the local level to ensure alignment with local supply conditions and minimize unintended consequences.

In just 128 days, mitigation water deliveries mandated by the 2003 water transfer will end. Meanwhile, the Salton Sea is expected to start receding at a much faster pace leaving thousands of acres of emissive playa exposed. Under the Quantification Settlement Agreement in which the State of California assumed responsibility to find a solution for the Salton Sea, the 2018 date to end mitigation water delivery was set to give the state enough time to come up with a solution. Nearly 15 years have passed and that promise has gone unfulfilled.