By Caty Wagner
Metropolitan Water District (MWD), the water wholesaler for Southern California, whose 19 million residents make it the largest wholesaler in the country, has a budget proposal up for a vote on April 9. MWD is proposing a whopping 21% increase in water rates over the next two years- 13% for 2025 and 8% for 2026 while projecting an additional 20% increase between 2027 and 2028, making it a 41% increase over a 4-year period.
Other alternatives: doubling and tripling property taxes this year, and/or cutting conservation funding. Inflation played a role in the increased costs, but so did MWD’s poor planning, and its environmental justice communities and the environment will pay the price.
Demand for water has been decreasing for decades as Californians commit to conservation, so MWD has decades of data to show the decreasing demand for water equates to a decrease in revenue, particularly in years of heavy rainfall like the last two. Instead of planning accordingly for the decrease in revenue, MWD continued to spend. Their long-term projections still don’t reflect the reality of volatile revenue. Their solution for the mismanagement is either raise rates or cut conservation spending, in an era of climate disaster.
We have all felt the pinch of inflation, with environmental justice communities getting hit the hardest. Homelessness and food prices continue to skyrocket, and an increase in property taxes will mean an increase in mortgages and rent, ultimately leading to an increase in the unhoused. Increasing property taxes places a strain on those most vulnerable among us, the disabled, elderly, and persons on fixed incomes including renters.
By increasing property taxes, MWD is hiding the true cost of water, which disincentivizes water conservation by users and water agencies alike and by shifting increased rates to property taxes, member agencies are disincentivized from boosting local resource programs because their investments won’t be linked to the financial benefits of the local supplies. This skews the data and discourages future investments, thus further stressing existing supplies and reducing local resilience.
This misleading method also diverts funding to State Water Project costs, which could be used in the future to fund the notorious and widely-opposed Delta tunnel. The projects will facilitate diversions from rivers, reducing Delta freshwater flows and degrading water quality for Delta communities in the process. This degradation can cause harmful algal blooms (HABs), and, coupled with reduced freshwater flows and warmer temperatures, decimates fish populations. Over-appropriation of water from the Delta has already caused significant harm to imperiled species. The Salmon fishing season was closed this year for only the third time in California’s history. White sturgeon have also been petitioned for listing as threatened under the California Endangered Species Act
The California Department of General Services estimates that the California Construction Cost index for San Francisco and Los Angeles increased by an annual percentage of 9.3% in 2022 and 13.4% in 2021. Construction on these projects is currently estimated to begin in 2027 at the earliest, if environmental review and permitting is completed. DWR has failed to produce an adequate environmental review of the project, and challenges to the project’s CEQA review are pending. DWR has yet to produce an updated cost estimate for the project, the numbers still being touted are from the last iteration of 2017/2018 Ca WaterFix at $17 billion.
It is audacious that Met still intends to support the Delta Conveyance Project while proposing to cut conservation funding despite DWR admitting the tunnel will not prevent the ongoing decline of State Water Project Deliveries. Additionally, MWD showed a ten-year projection for the budget if they did not continue their commitment to the Pure Water recycling center. Even entertaining that idea while still promoting the Delta Conveyance Project (Delta tunnel), a likely stranded asset, shows where their values lie. If anything is going to get cut from the budget, it should be Met’s commitment to the Delta tunnel and its sister project, the Sites Reservoir.
Caty is the Water Campaign Manager for Sierra Club CA, where she organizes around the Bay Delta, Colorado River and the impacts to Environmental Justice communities and ecosystems affected by overconsumption of these resources.