The most important water job in this region, general manager of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, is in flux.
Three people have held the position over the past five years, including two since the end of January. Now, Met Water is in the process of hiring yet another new leader, with district officials saying their goal is to find a general manager who will stay on the job for several years.
“The job is obviously important,” said Adán Ortega, chairman of the board at Met Water.
“Stability is important.”
Actually, stability at Met Water is important far beyond the district.
The 97-year-old, publicly funded district is the nation’s biggest water wholesaler, importing water from the Colorado River and Northern California that’s used by about 19 million people in six Southern California counties.
To do that, the district, a cooperative of 14 cities and 12 water agencies, employs more than 1,800 workers. It also owns and maintains 20 reservoirs and 24 dams; five water treatment systems and nearly 700 miles of aqueduct. Met Water’s annual budget, from property taxes and water fees, is about $2.4 billion, and it is in the process of a two-step rate increase (11% this year; 10% in 2026) to maintain its services. The district also raises money by issuing bonds, currently owing about $3.1 billion in such debt.
In a word, Met Water is big.
And, by extension, so is Met Water’s general manager position.
Though the district’s 38-member board of directors has final say on critical issues, the GM represents the advice and information generated by the district’s paid staff, including people who are experts in water, the environment and money. Because of that, the GM can be a key voice in shaping the availability and price of a non-negotiable resource that touches nearly every household.
But beyond all of that, the next GM will be hired during a time when Met Water is facing a range of huge – and hugely expensive – decisions.
The biggest of those is about the district’s long-term support of the Delta Conveyance Project, a $20 billion (for now) pipeline that would link the state’s reservoir systems in a way that lets Southern California tap into the wetter world of Northern California with even less hassle than it currently faces.
Various iterations of the pipeline have been backed by generations of California governors; Pat Brown, Jerry Brown, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jerry Brown again, and Gavin Newsom, among others. It’s been opposed for about as long by a long list of environmentalists and some who live in the region where the pipe might be built. A final decision on the Delta project is expected in the next 36 months.
Met Water has backed studies about Delta’s feasibility, but Ortega insisted the district has not made a final commitment on whether or not to back construction.
If built, Met Water would be on the hook for at least 60% of Delta’s cost.
Ortega – contradicting many outside observers – said full-throated support of the Delta project is not a requirement for the new GM.
“There are several decision points coming up, and all of the decisions will happen within the next two to three years. And all of the proposals we’re looking at are huge projects,” Ortega said.
“This is really a transformative time for our region,” he added.
“That’s one of the reasons, one of many, this is so important to get right.”
Like electing a pope
To date, the district’s hiring process has been measured and, according to some, overly secretive.
On Aug. 19, Metropolitan Water did something it’s done at least four times since May: It held a meeting in Los Angeles to vet a potential replacement for current GM Deven Upadhyay, who is slated to retire at the end of this year.
When the meeting was complete – after some members of the public had offered their views and after most of the district’s 38-member board had met in closed session – district officials did what they’ve done after all the previous meetings.
They didn’t hire anybody. And they didn’t say much about it.
District officials offered no official confirmation of who the finalists are. They didn’t say what water-related issues, if any, board members are talking about with the candidates. They also didn’t offer a specific timeline for making a hire, though Ortega said later that “late September” might be a good time to expect an announcement.
Officials did say they believe the process is legal and, contrary to accusations from some critics, that it meets the spirit of public transparency. They also say not naming names – even for a publicly financed job that currently pays more than $500,000 a year – is simply offering the same measure of privacy any job hunter might expect.
That’s not how the leader of the agency’s key union sees it.
On Aug. 11, Alan Shanahan, president of the district’s Employees Association of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which represents about 1,300 of the district’s workers, signed off on a public letter to the board. In it, he criticized a hiring process that, in his view, is high on secrecy and low on collaboration.
Shanahan wrote: “We are concerned about the final pool of six (candidates) and the manner in which it was/is being carried out, including the use of unofficial straw polls.”
Shanahan added that for the district, a public agency, any lack of transparency carries the risk of losing trust from workers and others.
“In our opinion, this (lack of transparency) gives a reasonable perception, and like many in the public, the belief that decisions have already been made.”
Other critics suggest the hiring process might be giving contractors who do business with Met Water an outsized role in hiring a public employee with a say about spending — a charge Ortega denied.
But to some who follow water issues, the district’s quest for a new leader is part of a broader question about the future of fresh water in Southern California.
For most of the past century, the region has been made habitable largely because Met Water has imported water here from the Colorado River. The strategy has helped to transform land that’s naturally an arid mix of coastal sage and chaparral and deserts into an economic and cultural powerhouse.
But importing water to Southern California soon might be seen as yesterday’s idea.
Climate change and demand from other states are making the Colorado River a less-reliable water source for Southern California. Population growth – once a given in Southern California – is slowing and might even slip into reverse in coming years. Water conservation has been improving and has helped push down overall demand, according to Ortega and others.
In short, Met Water – built to import water – might be forced to find a new strategy.
And that, according to some observers, is key to what’s playing out in the hunt for a new general manager.
In this view, the GM search is highlighting a conflict between two factions on Met Water’s board; those who want a GM who will support a future built around water imports, including the Delta project, against others on the board who want a GM who will push strategies and technologies that make Southern California more water independent.
Any lack of transparency in the hiring process might make it easier for the import-friendly faction.
“It’s 100 percent going to be a tunnel person,” said Shanahan. “They’re trying to ram that through the whole way. That’s why they’re keeping it under the radar.”
Others don’t go that far, but they do view the GM search as a clash of long-term water strategies.
“This whole thing is about philosophy,” said Garry Brown, founder and president of Orange County Coastkeeper, a Costa Mesa-based nonprofit that advocates for clean water and doesn’t have an official position on the Delta project or other Met Water issues.
“There are older, engineer-oriented types on the board who want to see Metropolitan Water keep doing things the way it has for a century. I call them water buffaloes. And there are others who don’t, who want to see something new.
“We worry, and I think a lot of people worry, that the older, engineer types are pushing away (GM) candidates who might push for a new direction,” Brown added. “We know they’ve already shut out some candidates who are absolutely qualified who absolutely would push the district to modernize.
“But importing water forever, it isn’t really the answer going forward, no matter who they hire,” Brown added.
“I think even the top people (at Met Water) see that, too.”
New or old or both?
Ortega argues that Met Water isn’t so rigid, or so binary.
As evidence, he points out that the second most expensive decision facing the district in the next few years, after the Delta project, is a wastewater recycling program the district calls “Pure Water.”
A pilot version of Pure Water already is operating in Carson, where Met Water and the Los Angeles County Sanitation District are turning wastewater into drinking water. Ortega said Met Water could spend up to $8 billion to expand Pure Water, something that might begin in the next two years.
Long term, the idea is that about 500,000 people near Carson could be the biggest wastewater recycling program in the world, replacing imported water with local water that’s cheaper and impervious to future drought and climate change. Similar operations are underway in San Diego County, and at the Hyperion Water Plant in Los Angeles and in Las Virgenes, near Malibu Creek.
Ortega said Pure Water is a key part of the GM search.
“The board has identified components of change that are currently in play for the water industry, overall, and for Southern California water in particular,” Ortega said. “When we invited candidates to apply, they were given several pieces of information that the board wanted to see about their perspective, their acumen, and ability to execute any of the strategies we’ve identified.”
The concept isn’t fanciful. Currently, the nation’s biggest groundwater-to-drinking water program is just a few miles south of Carson, in Fountain Valley, where a program created by the Orange County Water District and the Orange County Sanitation District has been producing clean, non-imported drinking water since 2008.
Newer technologies are coming online that could make such programs cheap enough for smaller water agencies to do the same. If that plays out, it might drastically reduce – maybe even end – the need for imported water in Southern California.
But such wholesale change might require a different strategy at Met Water, and other districts. And, for now, that’s not likely for several years, if ever.
Shanahan, among others, said Met Water is interested in an “all of the above” approach.
“They want both, the Delta project and the Pure Water project,” he said. “They want it all.”
“But, let’s be clear. If we do all the projects, Met Water will be bankrupted,” Shanahan added. “We don’t have the manpower to maintain the aqueduct system, as is.”
Shanahan believes his public letter and online media coverage about the nature of Met Water’s GM search might prompt the board to reconsider what is believed to be a list of three finalists for the job. He believes some board members from Los Angeles and San Diego counties might seek new candidates who will be less inclined to support importing and more interested in recycling and other strategies.
“I don’t think they’ll win, in the end. I think they’re going to hire someone who wants a tunnel. But it’s possible,” Shanahan said.
Yet, as powerful as the GM job might be, many observers say Met Water’s support of a Delta project, in any form, will be less influential than the state’s overall financial picture.
Brown, of Orange County Coastkeeper, noted that the state still hasn’t figured out a way to pay for high-speed rail. The Delta project, he said, probably can’t be started while high-speed rail is still viewed as a failure, no matter who is hired to lead Met Water.
“California can afford only one boondoggle at a time,” Brown said.