This week, Long Beach began receiving its first deliveries of groundwater from the City of Lakewood as part of a five-year deal inked in September that allows the Long Beach Water Department to buy a portion of the neighboring city’s water rights at savings of up to $50,000 a month over the Department’s current imported-water costs.
The deal is a score for both Lakewood and Long Beach’s water departments, who have collaborated in the past on other conjunctive use projects. With this most recent agreement, Long Beach will be able to replace a portion of its expensive imported-water reserves with much cheaper acre-foots of Lakewood water. For Lakewood, it is an opportunity to make some money off of its excess water that would have otherwise gone unused.
“Lakewood’s water supply is 100 percent groundwater and water rights are equal to the historical need,” said James Glancy, Director of Water Resources for hte City of Lakewood. “In recent years we have instituted a very successful water conservation program…Folks are also consuming less due to the general tighter economy. As a result Lakewood has water rights in excess of need again this year. Instead of leasing those rights to other parties, Lakewood and Long Beach have created a win-win situation with this water purchase agreement.”
Currently, 60 percent of Long Beach’s water comes from groundwater supplies from the Central Basin and the other 40 percent is imported from Northern California and the Colorado River through the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (MWD), a regional water wholesaler. Unfortunately, the cost of imported MWD water has doubled in the last decade—up to $794 per acre-foot in 2012—and the MWD Board recently approved another two-year 5% increase in supply cost, meaning 2013 rates will hit $847 per acre-foot and $890 per acre-foot in 2014 (the company cites an aging system that needs to be upgraded as justification for the increase).
Lakewood’s groundwater, on the other hand, costs only $524 per acre-foot, and the deal to purchase this cheaper water is expected to save the Long Beach Water Department some $20,000 to $50,000 per month over the purchase’s five-year length.
“Long Beach does not have an increased need due to our citywide water conservation efforts over the past few years,” said LBWD spokesperson Matthew Veeh. “What this agreement does is allows us to replace more expensive imported water from MWD with less expensive water from Lakewood.”
According to Vee, any cost savings achieved through the agreement will go toward mitigating future rate impacts to Long Beach customers.
—Additional reporting by Sarah Bennett