California’s coastal cities paying the most for water, report says

The Loveland Reservoir near Alpine Photo courtesy of Sweetwater Authority California cities pay far more for water on average than districts that supply farms with specific urban water agencies shelling out more than per acre-foot of surface water and a few irrigation districts paying nothing according to new research A review published Thursday by researchers with the UCLA Institute of the Context and Sustainability and advocates with the Natural Tools Defense Council shines a light on vast disparities in the price of water across California Arizona and Nevada The true price of water is often hidden from consumers A household bill may reflect suppliers costs to build conduits and pump water from reservoirs and rivers to farms and cities A local district may obtain water from multiple sources at different costs Even experts have trouble deciphering how much water suppliers pay for the water itself The research gang spent a year scouring state and federal contracts financial reports and agency records to assemble a dataset of water purchases transfers and contracts to acquire water from rivers and reservoirs They compared vastly different water suppliers with different necessities and geographies purchasing water from delivery systems built at different times and paid for under different contracts Their overarching conclusion One of the West s greater part valuable information has no consistent valuation and sometimes costs nothing at all It costs money to move water around the assessment says but there is no cost and no price signal for the actual water That s a concern the authors argue as California and six other states in the Colorado River basin hash out how to distribute the river s dwindling flows pressed by federal ultimatums and dire conditions in the river s two major reservoirs The review sounds the alarm that the price of water doesn t reflect its growing scarcity and disincentivizes conservation We re dealing with a river system and water supply source that is in absolute dilemma and is facing massive shortfalls and yet we re still treating this as if it s an abundant limitless reserve that should be free explained Noah Garrison environmental science practicum director at UCLA and lead author on the evaluation Jeffrey Mount senior fellow at the Citizens Guidelines Institute of California applauded the research effort Though he had not yet reviewed the statement he declared complications abound built into California s water infrastructure itself and amplified by circumstances change Moving storing and treating water can drive up costs and are only sometimes captured in the price We ve got to be careful about pointing our fingers and saying farmers are getting a free ride Mount stated Still he agreed that water is undervalued We do not pay the full costs of water the full social full economic and the full environmental costs of water Coastal cities pay the majority The research association investigated how much suppliers above a certain purchase threshold spend on water from rivers and reservoirs in California Arizona and Nevada They determined that California water suppliers pay more than double on average than what Nevada districts pay for water and seven times more than suppliers in Arizona The highest costs span the coast between San Francisco and San Diego which the researchers attributed to the cost of delivery to these regions and water transfers that drive up the price every time water changes hands In particular of those cases it s almost a geographic penalty for California that there are larger conveyance or carriage and infrastructure necessities depending on where the districts are located Garrison announced Agricultural water districts pay the least In California according to the authors cities pay on average times more than water suppliers for farms about per acre foot compared to One acre foot can supply roughly Californians for a year according to the state s Department of Water Tools Five major agricultural suppliers paid nothing to the federal governing body for nearly million acre-feet of water including three in California that receive Colorado River water the Imperial Irrigation District the Coachella Valley Water District and the Palo Verde Irrigation District Tina Anderholt Shields water manager for the Imperial Irrigation District which receives the single largest share of Colorado River water explained the district s contract with the U S executive does not require any payment for the water Cities by contrast received less than acre-feet of water for The overview notes however that the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California a major urban water importer spends only cents an acre-foot for around acre-feet of water from the Colorado River Bill Hasencamp manager of Colorado River information at Metropolitan commented that the true cost of this water isn t reflected in the -cent fee because the expense comes from moving it By the time the Colorado River water gets to the district he disclosed it costs several hundred dollars Plus he added the district pays for hydropower which helps cover the costs of the dams storing the water supply That enables us to only pay cents an acre foot to the feds on the water side because we re paying Hoover Dam costs on the power side Federal supplies are the cheapest transfers drive up costs Much of the difference among water prices across three states comes down to source those whose supplies come from federally managed rivers reservoirs aqueducts and pumps pay far less on average than those receiving water from state managed distribution systems or via water transfers Garrison and his gang proposed adding a surcharge per acre-foot of cheap federal supplies to help shore up the infrastructure against leaks and losses or pay for large-scale conservation efforts without tapping into taxpayer dollars But growers say that would devastate farming in California It s crucial to note that the value of water is priceless declared Allison Febbo General Manager of Westlands Water District which supplies San Joaquin Valley farms The record calculates that the district pays less than per acre foot for water from the federal Central Valley Project though the Westlands rate structure notesanother fee to a restoration fund The consequences of unaffordable water can be seen throughout our District fallowed fields unemployment decline in food production The Imperial Irrigation District s Shields disclosed that a surcharge would be inconsistent with their contract intricate to implement and unworkable for growers It s not like farmers can just pass it on to their buyers and then have that roll down to the consumer level where it might be manageable Shields declared The the bulk expensive water in California is more than an acre-foot The largest part expensive water in California Arizona or Nevada flows from the rivers of Northern California down California s state-managed system of aqueducts and pumps to the San Gorgonio Pass Water Agency in Riverside County Total cost according to the description per acre foot Lance Eckhart the agency s general manager mentioned he hadn t spoken to the review s authors but that the number sounded plausible The price tag would make sense he commented if it included contributing to the costs for building and maintaining the -mile long water delivery system as well as for the electricity needed to pump water over mountains Eckhart compared the water conveyance to a railroad and his water agency to a distant distant stop We re at the end so we have the majority railroad track to pay for and also the majority of power costs to get it down here he declared Because it took decades for construction of the water delivery system to reach San Gorgonio Pass the water agency built specific of those costs into local property taxes before the water even arrived rather than into the water bills for the cities and towns they supply As a development its mostly municipal customers pay only per acre foot Eckhart mentioned You can t build it into rates if you re not going to see your first gallon for years Ekhart declared The assessment didn t interrogate how the wholesale price of imported water translates to residential bills Water managers point out that cheap supplies like groundwater can help dilute the costs of pricey imported water The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power for instance purchases water imported from the Colorado River and Northern California to fill gaps left by local groundwater stores supplies from the Owens Valley and other locally managed sources noted Marty Adams the utility s former general manager The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power was unable to provide an interview Because the amount of water needed can vary from year to year it s added as an additional charge on top of the base rate Adams announced If you have to pay for purchased water somewhere when you add all the numbers up it comes out in that total he mentioned The purchased water becomes the wildcard all the time