Water board member has freeway named after him

I was driving to my softball game in Hermosa Beach on Sunday, thinking about a follow-up water story I am working on for the weekend. I happened to glance at a sign, naming the freeway I was on. It was the "Willard H. Murray, Jr." Freeway, the portion of Route 91 in the City of Compton from Alameda Road to Central Avenue. Heh. I just wrote a story about Murray.

Water Replinishment District director Murray was one of the highest spenders, along with Upper San Gabriel Valley Municipal Water District Director Leon Garcia, of 12 area water districts. Among the receipts were lavish trips and expensive dinners. Murray is a former Assemblyman who was forced out because of term-limits.

Here's a 1999 Daily Breeze article that ran about WRD and Murray:

Debate was far more cantankerous when the audit committee tackled a request to check records of the Water Replenishment District of Southern California, which manages two groundwater basins that serve 43 cities and 3.5 million residents.

Several of those cities demanded the audit, claiming the district charges outrageous fees, spends lavishly on consultants and employees and built a $70 million surplus at the expense of ratepayers.

"It is clear this is mismanagement and abuse of public dollars," said Bob Winningham, a Downey city councilman.

The district also angered member cities when it declined to solicit bids for a $22 million project to remove saltwater seeping into the groundwater basin that supplies South Bay drinking water.

"That's very troubling," said Assemblyman Scott Wildman, D-Los Angeles, chairman of the audit committee.

The contract was awarded to Montgomery Watson Americas of Pasadena. District President Robert Goldsworthy said the engineering firm was "the best to do the job."

District board member Willard Murray , a former assemblyman, told lawmakers the criticism is being leveled by cities that "do not want to pay their fair share" of the desalting project.

The burgeoning surplus, Murray said, resulted from the heavy rains of El Nin~o, which reduced the district's wholesale water purchases.

Also, $30 million of the surplus has been returned to cities, Murray said.

Previous rate increases -- from $51 per acre foot in 1991 to $151 today -- were imposed during periods in which the district was faced with higher costs for water it must purchase to replenish wells, he said. (An acre foot is 326,000 gallons, roughly enough to serve two families for a year.)

Murray's son, state Sen. Kevin Murray, D-Culver City, is a member of the audit committee. He argued vehemently against the audit, but did not vote.

Sen. Bill Morrow, R-Oceanside, said the district should welcome an independent review.

"You have a public relations problem at best," he said. "It boggles my mind why the district would resist this."

Formed by the Legislature in 1959, the district does not directly sell water to customers. It replenishes aquifers and reservoirs to curtail seawater intrusion for agencies that deliver water.