A statewide drought declaration was issued last June by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Spring rainfall in the Sierra Nevada Mountains was the lightest on record. Farmers in the Central Valley faced a 60 percent cut in water allocations.

But news of the drought generated about as much attention locally as Tuesday’s West Basin Municipal Water District election.

Despite the fact that the WBMWD’s five member board oversees a $127 million budget and sells water to nearly one million South Bay residents, the board labors in near anonymity at sparsely attended meetings at its headquarters building in Carson. The last time the district attracted significant public attention was in 2004 when two of the board members were convicted and sent to prison for accepting kickbacks in exchange for votes.

Manhattan Beach residents Carol Kwan is seeking a fourth term as the board’s representative for District 3, which includes Manhattan Beach, Hermosa Beach, Redondo Beach, Lomita and the unincorporated areas of Torrance.

Her only challenger, fellow Manhattan Beach resident Desi Alvarez, is making his third attempt to unseat Kwan.

During Alvarez’s first two bids, in 2000 and 2004, he sought to link Kwan to her two discredited colleagues. He also contended Kwan was improperly collecting $25,000 to $50,000 a year in per diems and travel expense reimbursements for the unsalaried position.
Kwan responded that her travels to water projects in the U.S., South America and China have helped her better understand how to bring innovative water services to her constituents.

Kwan believes technology holds hope for future
In recent years, the district has garnered high marks from the environmental community for its water reclamation and desalinization plants, and for its conservation efforts. Programs include providing low flow toilets and sinks to district businesses at little or not cost.

Kwan points to endorsements not only from fellow elected officials, including Congresswoman Jane Harman and Assemblyman Ted Lieu, but also Heal the Bay president Mark Gold, as evidence of her effectiveness.

My goal in the next four years is to focus on recycling. We don’t want to stop growth. But who wants to move into an area where water is scarce, Kwan said.

We’ve had a pilot desalination plan in El Segundo for five years. Now, we’re working closely with the City of Redondo Beach to build a demonstration desalination plant at the Redondo SeaLab.
Water reclamation and desalination could be the future. The technology is getting better and costs are coming down, Kwan said.

In addition to serving on the board, Kwan volunteers for a non profit that works to improve water quality water in her father’s home city Zhongshan in Guangdon (formerly Canton), China.

Alvarez favors conservation
Alvarez is an assistant city manager in Downey and former City of Redondo Beach engineer. He acknowledged that he is not mounting as aggressive a campaign as he did four year ago, when he spent $50,000 and received 42 percent of the 50,000 votes cast. Kwan received 48 percent of the votes.

Alvarez agrees the district deserves high marks for its reclamation and desalination projects, but said it needs to do more in the admittedly less sexy field of conservation.

California has the same water supply as it had 20 years ago, but the population has increased by 20 percent, he pointed out.

Growing environmental concerns have also put new demands on California’s water supply, he said.
In the past, the demand for water came from three sources ‘ agriculture, industry and municipalities. Today environmental considerations are imposing a fourth demand, he said.
Environmental threats to the Sacramento Delta, Mono Lake and the Owens River have led to court decisions restricting water flowing to Southern California, he pointed out.

Alvarez also pointed out that the Sierra Nevada snowpack, which supplies many of California’s water reservoirs, is shrinking. The snowpack used to last until June. Now it is melting away by May, Alvarez said. ER