It looks like about $200 a year per boater for each of the next five years will be all it takes to pay for the recently approved launch ramp at Diamond Valley Lake. Of course, that’s just an estimate.
Yesterday the Board of Directors of the Metropolitan Water District approved putting the project out to bid as was announced on the MWD’s website. According to the release, construction could start by October and three lanes of the ramp would be extended 228 feet with completion next February.
Naturally, the impact on lake users is the big question. The MWD says they have received petitions with a thousand signees committing to “help fund an extension through increased fees.” Based on the water broker’s history, you can believe they will be counting on that help.
Yet even my fourth grade math tells me that the cost divided among the thousand who signed petitions puts the price at more than $1000 per signee. Divided over the five years the MWD estimates it will take to pay for the project, the annual amount comes to $200 per angler/boater.
The part of the MWD statement that is of most interest to bass anglers is the one that states, “Under today’s board action, lake user fees will be gradually increased over the next five years to help offset the costs….” While no one (not even me) expects users will be saddled with the full amount, it is fascinating that the richest utility in the state is crying poor–over a recreational facility for which they had original responsibility to provide.
Couching its response to public outcry in terms that suggest the MWD could still change course in the future, the Board Chairman Timothy F. Brick was quoted as saying, “…the essential role of Diamond Valley Lake has played in meeting the region’s water supply needs over the past three years cannot be downplayed.”
What was left unsaid, however, was that role will not change over the next five years either.
But you have to love the MWD for telling us just what we all want to hear. But to read Mr. Brick say it in this fashion: “If there is a positive side to these unprecedented water supply challenges it’s that it has provided us with the opportunity to take advantage of low lake levels to complete the boat launch ramps and possibly reopen the lake to private boating…,” is not that reassuring to me.
It doesn’t give one a lot of confidence when the chairman says, “possibly reopen the lake to private boating.”
So, what the hey? Expect the worst, hope for the best.
2 Responses to “DVL to take bids on ramp: ‘promises, promises’”
funny, I said the same thing on western bass over a a month and a half ago and got bashed for it. Thanks george
The word “Private” would scare me. What’s the meaning of PRIVATE to MWD?