Twittering birds wrap a towel around Giselle as she exits the shower in Disney’s “Enchanted.” “This is a magical room!” she enthuses to her unwilling host, Robert. “Where does the water come from?”
Robert stammers. “Well, the water comes from the pipes,” he says. “And where do the pipes get it?” she persists. “Uh… I don’t know,” he says. “From…wherever the pipes get it.” Giselle swoons. “Oooooh,” she says. “It is magical.”
Most of us are probably like Robert, and take the magic for granted. So listen up, O.C.: If you live in the central and northern reaches of the county, your water is mostly drawn from below the ground and delivered to you via the Orange County Water District. It’s pretty cheap. If you live in the southern reaches of the county, your water is mostly imported from afar via aqueducts and channels and delivered to you via the Municipal Water District of Orange County. It’s pretty expensive.
Often there’s a city or water district layered on top before it gets to you, which may seem a bit confusing. But if you shower, brush your teeth or drink the wet stuff, you should pay attention to these two agencies and the contentious proposal to smoosh them together.
One is all for it. The other is not. And the outside agency playing Justice of the Peace to municipal marriages (the Local Agency Formation Commission, a.k.a. LAFCO) is expected to drill down on it all during a hearing slated to be held in 2025. Public comments on the study have been submitted, including what the main players have to say.
So, everybody in the pool!
Save $6.4 million a year?
We told you that after decades of sharing a building and address and receptionist and general mission (water!), but having completely separate budgets and staffs and boards of directors and M.O.s and general managers etc., the Orange County Local Agency Formation Commission (our aforementioned Justice of the Peace) said it’s feasible to merge the county’s big groundwater manager (Orange County Water District) with the county’s not-so-big water importer (Municipal Water District of Orange County).
A combination could eventually save some $6.4 million a year, the LAFCO study says, which admittedly is almost nothing when measured against the agencies’ combined half-billion dollar budget. But the idea’s power is not financial. Champions of the merger argue that if the agencies are joined Orange County would speak with a unified voice at the mighty Metropolitan Water District of Southern California in Los Angeles, which imports water for 19 million people in the region and is the crucible of power in SoCal’s Water World.
San Diego County already does this. Orange County remains fractured.
In its response dated Dec. 19 (starts on page 168 of the agenda packet), the Orange County Water District expressed warmth for the idea of a merger, which isn’t surprising, as it had asked LAFCO to do the study (after the Orange County Grand Jury urged the same) to begin with.
“A single agency might be able to provide the services offered by (Orange County Water District) and (Municipal Water District of Orange County) more efficiently,” the Orange County Water District’s response said. “The draft LAFCO report confirms that no ‘fatal flaws’ or ‘insurmountable issues’ prevent the consolidation of the two agencies. Orange County Water District suggests that, ideally, one agency should manage the county’s wholesale water needs…. because consolidation may offer numerous benefits, including better coordination in providing imported water and local groundwater, greater accountability and less public confusion, cost savings, avoidance of conflicts, improved lobbying efforts with state and local officials and a unified voice for Orange County water issues.”
The Orange County Water District points out that the Municipal Water District of Orange County’s main mission is to operate as a middleman, buying imported water and reselling it to the cities and water districts in its service territory. In the past, “misinformation” has scuttled attempts to combine the two agencies, so the Orange County Water District now is trying to get in front of that. It says that in the event of a consolidation the north and central cities and districts that currently draw groundwater from the basin would continue to do so, while south county communities would not get to dip their straws into the aquifer.
Meanwhile, debt incurred by customers of the Orange County Water District would continue to be paid by those customers and those customers only.
And the county would retain the seven seats it currently holds on the mighty Metropolitan Water District of Southern California board, it said. If the big local agencies are merged, the county’s representation at the Metropolitan Water District would not shrink.
Baloney, MWDOC says
The little guy in this deal, the Municipal Water District of Orange County, is far less enchanted with the prospect of a union. It seeks to survive.
In its official response, dated Dec. 20, Municipal Water District officials wrote that their agency “firmly believes this report relies on flawed data, superficial assumptions and insufficient depth of research to support such a significant reorganization of Orange County’s water management structure.”
They said that their agency has identified significant concerns that “call into question the feasibility and benefits of the proposed consolidation. Our detailed review reveals fundamental flaws in the financial analysis, serious governance concerns and a lack of demonstrable water management benefits for Orange County.”
They added that the report appears to significantly overstate cost savings while understating — or ignoring — transition costs and operational risks.
The response says the two agencies “have vastly different water management roles and responsibilities and should remain separate.” And it adds this:
“Claims about improved coordination and representation are unsupported by concrete evidence or specific examples in which lack of coordination has resulted in demonstrable adverse outcomes. Instead, the analysis relies heavily on anecdotal conclusions rather than quantitative data to support assertions about the potential benefits of consolidation.”
Since southern cities and water agencies would not get access to the (cheap) groundwater basin, Municipal Water District officials said their agency’s south county customers would gain nothing from a merger in terms of “emergency supply reliability, drought mitigation or other water resource management benefits.” Instead, those customers rely heavily on imported water from mighty Metropolitan, in Los Angeles, and a new combined water agency in Orange County might reduce its overall focus on imported water.
Ariya Tamariz doused with water at Sigler Park in Westminster in 2021. (Photo by Paul Bersebach, Orange County Register/SCNG)And Municipal Water District of Orange County also floats the boogeyman that the Orange County Water District is trying to nix: That the county could actually lose representation on mighty Metropolitan’s board under a merger and, as a result, come out weaker for it.
New legislation would be needed to combine the agencies, and really, who needs it? The Local Agencies Formation Commission previously has found no service deficiencies in the current two-agency water system and concluded that each agency can do its job.
“Targeted enhancements and further partnerships among the two agencies — rather than large-scale restructuring — will be more effective,” Municipal Water District officials wrote. “The consolidation feasibility study appears to be a solution in search of a problem. As such, the MWDOC Board does not see merit or value resulting from consolidation.”
The Justice of the Peace (LAFCO) is slated to consider all this and more soon. Could a new agency walk and chew gum at the same time? We’ll keep you posted. Until then, enjoy the miracle of your shower!
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