SOI Waaaaaay OUT THERE

SOI (SPHERE OF INFLUENCE) this is like the DISTRICT/LAFCo “wish list” of water service for the future, but as previously mentioned even successfully completed annexations to the District were apparently based on, at best incorrect information and at worst, complete fabrication that the District could serve water available under L11395.

The LDPCSD allegedly furnished questionable information regarding the ability to serve water to projects outside the MID POU and such information was not verified or double checked by COUNTY or STATE AUTHORITIES which is bewildering – especially after 1992 when the LDPCSD was “busted” for illegal connections outside the MID POU.   MID’s enforcement of L11395 ignited another flood of proposed annexations to the district for future water service and real estate/land development interests were chomping at the bit and pushing the issue aggressively. 

But no one questioned the number and validity of these proposed annexations that claim to have been assured water service? 

Sorry, but I don’t buy that for a nanosecond.

[Especially when liability disclaimer language is used in respective county annexation paperwork.  ie,  county claims it is not liable if an approved annexed property (with stated water service to be supplied by the LDPCSD) cannot actually receive water because of obstruction by either the Merced Irrigation District or the Lake Don Pedro Community Services District.]

Cute huh?

NO WONDER so many people through the decades have come screaming into LDPCSD Board Meetings with extreme outrage demanding their water.

(Seriously, can you imagine the decades of frustrated property owners who looked at the Lake Don Pedro subdivision and saw virtually unlimited supplies of quality water, yet they could not be served – even though the county and their LAFCos said they could?)

A recipe for continued community unrest.

“We have the right to that water”

“Even the County agrees – you must furnish water to my property”

“The ranch I bought in these foothills is worthless without water”

“I don’t care about your place of use issues, I want my water”

“LAFCo says you will provide water to my property”

“When I bought my property I was told the CSD would furnish water in the future”

“I am a citizen of this county and have rights”

“This is pure discrimination”

“Why is this public agency being so selfish with so much water?”

<heavy sigh>

And that is just what the paperwork they were gripping in clinched angry fists said:

the LDPCSD will serve water.

The fine print which is often overlooked said something else

but if not, the approving county is not responsible.

Obviously there could have been some typical unofficial “corner cutting”, “WINK & NODS” and “UNDER THE TABLE AGREEMENTS” between the County and District regarding approval of projects everyone knew, or should have known with due diligence, were misrepresented for the sake of expediency in a fast moving situation of water availability.

Approved project plans also facilitated the creation of grandiose color printed paper maps with blown out service boundaries that were quickly disseminated everywhere for a number of purposes including State calculation and establishment of local tax areas.

Lake Don Pedro Tax Rate Areas in Mariposa County 2013/14

Lake Don Pedro Tax Rate Areas in Tuolumne County 2013/14

WOW!  What an enormous WATER EMPIRE RIPE FOR THE PICKING!

 REFERENCE: How many annexations to district service area may have been “DEFAULT APPROVED”

    Example of 2006 Mariposa County Annexation Process

It is also quite possible the District’s INTENTIONAL FAILURE to respond to multiple COUNTY REQUESTS may have facilitated those “WINK AND NOD DEFAULT APPROVALS” of sham projects to obtain the semblance of “a right” to water.  Some of these LAFCo approvals actually CREATED that which LAFCos were specifically designed and intended to prevent, like “Islands of service” such as the District’s expanded service boundary encircling the “PINEY CREEK AREA” mobile home park and other large parcel property holdings.

So apparently just about anything could have been submitted based on untruths with little concern for logical reasoning.  Check out the below map of the DISTRICT’s expanded SOI that can only be accomplished with ground water substitution for the fantastic quality Merced River water we usually pump from Lake McClure.

Now compare the ABOVE “wish list of water service based on extremely expensive ground water substitution” (and false information to the County of Mariposa) with the legal service area of Merced River Water under L11395 and the MID POU agreement illustrated below.

That is correct Grasshopper, it is the Lake Don Pedro residential subdivision and golf course, along with 2,010 acres of the SOUTH SHORE PROJECT (to the WEST IN GREEN) which is the ONLY LEGITIMATELY ANNEXED PROPERTY IN THE DISTRICT which has done ASOLUTELY NOTHING IN DECADES!

If Kampa and company want to develop more property  – serve it where it has already been legally approved for 772 acre feet of Merced River Water a year by the DISTRICT, MID, MARIPOSA & TOULUMNE COUNTY LAFCo and the CALIFORNIA STATE WATER BOARD!

I’ve always imagined the boundary map above looking a little like  “Woodstock” — Snoopy’s little bird friend in the Peanuts cartoons.  (Of course the South Shore Project also expanded Woodstock’s tail !)   🙂

SUNDAY MARCH 6, 2016

Need to clean up from storm damage, but I found another SPHERE OF INFLUENCE  (SOI) PROPOSED MAP (below).   Check out how much further the service boundaries are blown-out, especially to the west.  All the way to the shores of the Lake Don Pedro Reservoir. (Which evidently includes the Ken Nichols 300 acre ranch northeast of Bonds Flat Road.)