Caution on water usage should be paramount (August 31, 2015)
When I ran for a seat on the MWA (Mojave Water Agency) board, I received a questionnaire from the Building Industry Association (BIA) to determine if they felt I was worthy of their financial support. The questions dealt with whether I favored development or not? I chose to not commit to them and as it turned out the incumbent retained his seat.
The Water Supply Assessment that allows Terra Verde Group to build a new city at Rancho Las Flores in Summit Valley includes water supplies that the MWA purchased from Stewart Resnick (Paramount Farms), none of which has ever been delivered. I’m referring to the Berrenda Mesa and Dudley Ridge water purchases. Billionaire Resnick bamboozled the MWA Board into paying him $98 million, but this bad deal provided cover from SB 610 and allows them to continue to tell the public that these paper water rights contribute to our water supply, which allows for unabated growth until the year 2035, thereby making those that are irrelevant, relevant.
How much water did the MWA get from the State Water Project during this drought?
Make no mistake about it, we are living off of our groundwater supplies, which experts claim took 10,000 years of snowmelt to accumulate.
Caution should be paramount, but our current board today will tell you because of their water purchases, banking and deliveries, our aquifer is, in balance.
Fifty years ago the MWA was created and placed in control of our water because past boards warned us we were in serious overdraft. We needed them to avoid a (key phrase follows) builders’ moratorium.
This is historically a fact.
The only trouble with this proclamation is we still use far more water than the MWA delivers which is also a fact, so how can the aquifer be in balance today?
Does someone have designs on controlling our water and is this a continuation of making the irrelevant, relevant?
I’m wondering if the BIA sent questionnaires to these boards, both past and present, and they all answered the questions correctly?
— David Mueller is an Apple Valley resident.
Source: Daily Press