BILL ANALYSIS
AB 2483
Page 1
Date of Hearing: April 13, 2010
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON WATER, PARKS AND WILDLIFE
Jared William Huffman, Chair
AB 2483 (Coto) - As Amended: March 22, 2010
SUBJECT : Santa Clara Valley Water District authorities.
SUMMARY : Revises and recasts the Santa Clara Valley Water
District (District) Act. Specifically, this bill :
1)Repeals the current uncodified District Act.
2)Revises and codifies the Act in an updated format.
3)Adds legislative findings and declarations regarding the need
for an integrated approach to flood protection and water
supply.
4)Adds the following definitions:
a) "Abandoned well" means a well that is no longer in use
and that meets specified conditions;
b) "Conjunctive use" means the coordination and planned
management of both surface water and groundwater resources
to optimize the availability, reliability, and quality of
water supplies;
c) "Integrated water management" means a holistic approach
to flood, water resources, and environmental activities;
d) "Nonagricultural water" means water used for any
beneficial use other than agricultural use, including
municipal, industrial, landscape irrigation, and domestic
use;
e) "Record Owner," for purposes of notice, is an owner or
operator of a water-producing facility;
f) "Recycled water" means wastewater that is suitable for
beneficial use as a result of treatment;
g) "Stewardship" means the careful and responsible
management of the environment and natural resources for the
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current and future benefit of the greater community; and,
h) "Watershed" means a regional or area bounded
peripherally by a divide and draining immediately to a
particular watercourse or body of water.
5)Authorizes the District, in addition to its current
responsibilities, to do any of the following:
a) Protect against land subsidence;
b) Plan for and respond to climate change; and,
c) Encourage the integration of energy and water policies
to increase renewable energy production, to promote water
use efficiency, and to reduce environmental impacts.
6)Provides the District, in addition to its current powers, the
power to cooperate with, enter into, and to do any acts
necessary for the proper performance of any agreement with the
state, the United States, any state, city, county, district of
any kind, public or private corporation, association, firm, or
individual, for the ownership, joint acquisition, leasing,
disposition, use, management, construction, installation,
extension, maintenance, repair, or operation of any rights,
works, or other property of a kind that might lawfully be
acquired or owned by the District, or for the lawful
performance of any power or purpose of the District.
7)Provides the District with the power to construct, manage, and
maintain all District flood protection facilities, including
levees, modified channels, bypasses, culverts, floodwalls,
detention basins, diversion structures, all appurtenances and
other structures, as well as to utilize nonstructural methods,
for the purpose of containing or conveying flood waters.
8)Provides the District with the following additional powers
with regard to protection of water quality:
a) To conduct investigations of the quality of surface
water or groundwater within the District to determine if
water is being degraded, contaminated, or polluted;
b) To expend funds to perform any cleanup, containment,
abatement, prevention, remedial work, public notification,
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or educational public outreach which, in the determination
of the District Board of Directors (Board), is required
under regulatory authority of any state or federal agency
or by the magnitude of the endeavor, or the urgent need for
prompt action to prevent, abate, or contain any threatened
or existing contamination of or pollution to the surface
water or groundwater of the district; and,
c) To hold the contaminator or polluter liable for costs
if, the District causes contamination or pollution to be
cleaned up or contained, the effects abated, or other
necessary remedial action is taken to address actual or
threatened contamination or pollution.
9)Specifies that the District may impose groundwater management
charges to cover the costs of groundwater management
activities, including conjunctive use, for the production of
water from the groundwater supplies within a zone of the
District that benefits from recharge of imported water, or
from the extraction of groundwater from all water extraction
facilities within the District.
10)Provides the Board with the discretion to uniformly authorize
partial or full payments of fees associated with candidate
ballot statements in order to encourage greater participation
in the political process.
11)Removes the District's current caps on interest rates and
indebtedness.
12)Authorizes the Board to establish a designated reserve for
capital outlay and a designated reserve for contingencies and
specifies the purposes and procedures for managing those
reserves.
13)Specifies that groundwater management within the boundaries
of the District is the prerogative of the District and a
primary purpose for which the District was established and is
empowered.
14)Requires the District to conjunctively manage its groundwater
and surface water resources to optimize water supply
reliability for the benefit of the county as a whole and to
protect infrastructure from subsidence.
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15)Authorizes the District, in order to improve groundwater
supplies, to do all of the following:
a) Require conservation practices and measures;
b) Impose tiered rates as a water management tool; and,
c) Prevent harmful groundwater extractions by regulating,
limiting, or temporarily suspending any or all of the
following:
i) Extractions from water producing facilities;
ii) The construction of new water producing facilities;
iii) Modification of existing water producing facilities;
and,
iv) The reactivation of abandoned water-producing
facilities.
16)Establishes a notice and protest process for the imposition
or increase of groundwater management charges.
17)Specifies that a previously approved charge remains in effect
until reduced or increased.
18)Specifies that the District may impose a different
groundwater management rate for water to be used for
agricultural purposes.
19)Expands the District's authority on what groundwater
management charges can be used for to include the following
activities:
a) Managing water supplies for the current and future
benefit of the District, including demand management
activities and reasonably related watershed stewardship
activities; and,
b) Actions and programs to conserve, store, extract,
inject, recharge, recycle, protect, treat, transfer,
exchange, or distribute water for the current and future
benefit of the District.
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20)States that it is the intent of the District to ensure that
the public is informed about proposed capital projects and
their funding sources, that broad environmental considerations
are included at the earliest possible phase of planning, and
that adequate opportunities are afforded the public to
participate in the decision making process.
21)Establishes a public process for reviewing engineering
reports for capital projects.
22)States that the provisions of this measure are severable.
23)Declares that a special law is necessary because of the
unique and special surface water, groundwater, and floodwater
problems in the area included in the District.
EXISTING LAW establishes the District and specifies its powers
and purposes relating to water supply and flood management.
FISCAL EFFECT : Unknown
COMMENTS :
1)This bill was heard and passed out of the Local Government
Committee on April 7, 2010.
2)According to the sponsor, Santa Clara Valley Water District,
Santa Clara County is faced with water resource challenges
brought on by population growth, periodic drought, regulatory
restrictions, environmental considerations, aging
infrastructure, and changing laws. A revised District Act
which emphasizes an integrated comprehensive water resources
management approach will enable the District to more
efficiently and adaptively manage through these challenges.
3)Increasing pressures on the Bay-Delta system, the source of
half of Santa Clara County's water supplies, make it
imperative that the District have the clear authority to
proactively promote water conservation and protect the quality
and quantity of local groundwater supplies to ensure
reliability of the local water supply.
4)According to the author's office, "while the revisions in
authority contained in this bill will position the District to
better implement new state policy direction regarding
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conservation and management of increasingly scarce water
resources, it also presents an opportunity to update an
ambiguous document that has been pieced together in a
sometimes disjointed fashion over the course of the last six
decades." This bill includes a comprehensive rewrite of the
Act that will transform it into an organized, cohesive,
comprehensive articulation of the authority exercised by the
District to provide integrated management of water supply,
watershed stewardship, groundwater management, and flood
protection.
5)Groundwater management charges : Article XIII D, section 6
subdivision (c), of the California Constitution, provides,
"Except for fees or charges for sewer, water, and refuse
collection services, no property related fee or charge shall
be imposed or increased unless and until that fee or charge is
submitted and approved by a majority vote of the property
owners of the property subject to the fee or charge or, at the
option of the agency, by a two-thirds vote of the electorate
residing in the affected area." However, all property related
fees and charges, including those exempt from the election
requirement, are subject to the notice, hearing, and majority
protest procedures of article XIII D, 6(a), as well as the
substantive requirements of 6(b). Before the Courts right
now are the questions of: What is the scope of the exemption
from the voter approval requirement in Article XIII D 6(c)
as it pertains to water? And, do groundwater pumping charges
fall within the exemption from the voter approval requirement
in article XIII D, section 6 subdivision (c)? The District
itself has been a party to litigation on this very issue. The
District is now in the process of appealing the lower Court's
decision on this matter. This issue was raised in the Natural
Resources Committee which questioned whether the Legislature
should step in and specify the groundwater management charge
process for the District when the Courts are still in the
middle of deciding the constitutional issue in a multitude of
cases before them.
6)Support Arguments : Supporters, including the Association of
California Water Agencies (ACWA), state that AB 2483 would add
accountability and transparency by providing clearer noticing
to the public and greater opportunity for public input, as
well as making the groundwater charge setting process more
transparent. ACWA also believes that the bill would
strengthen the District's ability to manage local water
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resources by providing stronger, more proactive conservation
tools. According to the District, "the new language is
intended to be clear and unambiguous to encourage transparency
and accountability to the public. A better structured Act
will also, by context, clarify the scope and intent of the
language and will help to avoid misunderstandings as to
District authority."
7)Opposition Arguments : Opposition, including the California
Water Association (CWA), Great Oaks Water Company, and
Stanford University, state that the bill provides the District
with overly broad and unnecessary authority that would have
adverse impact on retail water purveyors in Santa Clara
County. CWA believes that AB 2483 would greatly expand the
District's authority over operators of water production
facilities.
Opposition, including the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association,
also argues that it is premature for the District to establish
one methodology for handling increases in groundwater
management charges when the Courts are currently debating
which provisions of Proposition 218 apply to groundwater
management charges.
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION :
Support
Santa Clara Valley Water District [SPONSOR]
Association of California Water Agencies
California Special Districts Association
Clean Water Action
Opposition
California Water Association
Great Oaks Water Company
Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association
Silicon Valley Taxpayers' Association
Stanford University
Analysis Prepared by : Tina Leahy / W., P. & W. / (916)
319-2096