SECTIONS 11970-11976 - California Statutes

WATER CODE

SECTION 11970-11976

11970. The department may use Central Valley Project revenue bonds
or other funds available for the purposes of the State Water
Resources Development System to finance, in whole or in part, water
conservation programs and facilities that reduce demands by the
sponsoring contractor for project water from the system for a period
of time agreed to by the sponsoring contractor, and thereby increase
the supply of project water available in the Sacramento-San Joaquin
Delta for distribution to other contractors.

11971. As used in this article, "sponsoring contractor" means a
contractor or contractors, who have a long-term water supply contract
with the department and who agree to reduce demands for project
water from the State Water Resources Development System in accordance
with Section 11970.

11972. A local water conservation project described in Section
11970 is eligible for funding pursuant to this article if, in the
determination of the department, the project meets all of the
following criteria:
(a) The project is engineeringly feasible and is capable of
producing project water which is economically competitive with
alternative new water supply sources.
(b) The construction and operation of the facilities and programs
will not interfere with the requested deliveries of annual
entitlement water to any contractor other than the sponsoring
contractor.
(c) The project will not result in any greater annual charges to
any contractor, other than the sponsoring contractor, than would have
occurred with the construction at the same time of alternative new
water supply sources constituting either reservoirs located north of
the delta or off-aqueduct storage reservoirs located south or west of
the delta designed to deliver water to the California Aqueduct.

11973. The department shall determine whether a local water
conservation project described in Section 11970 is economically
competitive by comparing, in an engineering and economic analysis,
the local conservation project with alternative new water supply
sources constituting either reservoirs located north of the delta or
off-aqueduct storage reservoirs located south or west of the delta
designed to supply water to the California Aqueduct. The analysis for
the alternative new water supply sources shall use the average cost
per acre-foot of yield in the latest studies made for those sources
by the department and shall compare those facilties with the proposed
local conservation project using commonly accepted engineering
economics. In the case of a local conservation project to be funded
in part by the department as part of the system and in part from
other sources, the economic analysis shall be applied only to the
portion to be funded by the department as a part of the system.

11974. A local water conservation project described in Section
11970 shall not be constructed or implemented pursuant to this
article until both of the following occurs:
(a) The sponsoring contractor signs a written agreement with the
department which indicates all of the following:
(1) The approval of the facility or program by the sponsoring
contractor.
(2) The yield and the period of time during which the water from
the local conservation project constitutes project water.
(3) The disposition of the local conservation project or of the
yield from the local conservation project upon the expiration of that
period of time.
(b) All contractors within whose boundaries any portion of the
local water conservation project is located, and who are not
sponsoring contractors for the local conservation project, approve
the local water conservation project in writing.

11975. In the event of a shortage in water supply, within the
meaning of Article 18(a) of the standard water supply contract
between the department and the state water supply contractors, the
determination of whether to count, in whole or in part, the reduced
demand from future conservation programs described in Section 11970
in the allocation of deficiencies among contractors shall be based on
a project-by-project evaluation taking into consideration such
factors as any limitation on the use of the water from the facilities
and whether the sponsoring contractor has access to project water
from the delta as an alternate to those facilities.

11976. This article is the only portion of this chapter applicable
to the State Water Resources Development System.