Also serving the communities of De Luz, Rainbow, Camp Pendleton, Pala and Pauma
The San Diego County Water Authority adopted a multi-year budget for fiscal years 2005-06 and 2006-07, and the June 23 adoption will produce some significant changes for the CWA.
For the first time in the CWA’s history, capital improvement program expenditures over the budget period will exceed water purchases. The staffing component will soon include a non-lobbyist position in Sacramento. The conservation emphasis has shifted toward outdoor conservation programs, and funding was approved to develop a water conservation garden in North County.
The CWA’s total budget for 2005-06 and 2006-07 is $1.338 billion. The CWA’s entire capital improvement program includes $3.315 billion worth of projects, and $570.5 million of that is earmarked for expenditure between July 1, 2005, and June 30, 2007.
Major projects among those capital improvements include the Twin Oaks Valley water treatment plant which will provide 100 million gallons of treated water per day to North County, the seawater desalination plant in Carlsbad along with desalinated water conveyance facilities, Colorado River canal lining projects (the Quantification Settlement Agreement, which brings Imperial Irrigation District water to San Diego County, includes lining the Coachella Canal and All-American Canal; when those two projects are completed San Diego County will have an additional 77,000 acre feet of water annually for the next 110 years), the emergency storage program and aqueduct pipe replacement and relining. A total of 57 projects are in the 2005-06 and 2006-07 capital improvement projects budget.
The budget’s $519 million for water purchases is based on the annual projected purchases of 585,000 acre feet for 2005-06 and 600,000 acre feet for 2006-07. The budget also includes $178.3 million for debt service, $66.1 million for operating expenses, $3.4 million for equipment replacement and $700,000 for environmental expenses of the Quantification Settlement Agreement.
The Sacramento position will be in addition to the CWA lobbyist; that staff member’s primary role will be to represent the CWA at meetings in Sacramento. Although lobbying activities themselves were not substantially changed from the 2004-05 budget, they were transferred from the General Manager/Board of Directors department to the Public Affairs department, skewing the operating expense increase and decrease numbers for those two departments. Excluding those two departments, the CWA’s Right of Way and Imported Water departments had the greatest changes in operating expenses; Right of Way operating expenses will increase by 28.0 percent or $929,147 while Imported Water operational expenses will increase by $997,994 or 25.5 percent.
The CWA will be funding $100,000 of the expenses of the Conservation Garden at Cuyamaca College. In an effort to provide North County residents with a more geographically convenient garden, $100,000 was approved for a North County equivalent.
The budget reflects a change in philosophy on conservation emphasis. “We are scaling back a number of our indoor programs,” said CWA general manager Maureen Stapleton. “We are transitioning these funds into outdoor conservation efforts.”
Many of the indoor programs will continue. The budget includes $380,000 for the ultra-low flush toilet program, $236,312 for high-efficiency clothes washers and $149,500 for commercial-industrial-institutional programs.
The conservation program also includes $1,147,500 for professional assistance for landscape management. “It usually takes several years to get landscape programs up and running,” said CWA principal water resources specialist Vickie Driver. “It’s a major behavioral change.”
A significant amount of that expense will be for irrigation hardware upgrades. Most of that funding is from a state Department of Water Resources grant. The budget also includes $50,000 for landscape outreach and $25,000 for residential surveys.
The CWA has a contract with the Mission Resource Conservation District to conduct agricultural water use audits which assist farmers and growers in reduction of their water use. The agricultural audit budget, which will be $65,000 over the next two years unless additional money is provided, was actually cut from 2004-05. “We’ve been using that money every year,” Driver said. “I’m not sure what will happen.”
Driver explained that the heavy 2004-05 rainfall led to a temporary reduction in demand, causing some of the agricultural audit budget to be reallocated to other conservation programs.
“We’ll be putting our thinking cap on to find ways to meet those needs,” Driver said of the agricultural audit program.
The conservation budget also includes $36,500 for artificial turf fields, which does not include a pending grant application for an additional $50,000.
The two-year budget, which was first adopted for fiscal years 2003-04 and 2004-05, allows the CWA to provide enhanced fiscal management for multi-year projects and long-term planning.
Reader Comments(0)