The Chino Basin Program (CBP), a program led by the Inland Empire Utilities Agency (IEUA) and partners, has reached a significant milestone as environmental engineering firm Brown and Caldwell completes the preliminary design of a new 13.4 million gallons per day Advanced Water Purification Facility (AWPF), a vital component of the innovative water program.
Water recycling reduces the need to import or develop additional drinking water supplies. It is a vital water management strategy to ensure a safe, reliable, and locally controlled water supply to support healthy environments, robust economies, and high quality of life.
Water and wastewater agencies in San Diego County are developing or expanding their water recycling infrastructure. Among those at the forefront is the Olivenhain Municipal Water District. OMWD marks a significant milestone in August: the 20th anniversary of its award-winning 4S Ranch Water Reclamation Facility, which began serving high-quality recycled water for irrigation in August 2003.
The Olivenhain Municipal Water District’s award-winning 4S Ranch Water Reclamation Facility celebrates its 20th anniversary in August 2023. Photo: Olivenhain Municipal Water District
OMWD annexed the 4S Ranch and Rancho Cielo Sanitation Districts from the County of San Diego in 1998. OMWD also took ownership of a small wastewater treatment facility in 4S Ranch. This facility had the capability to treat 0.25 million gallons per day (MGD) of wastewater from the surrounding commercial center and condominium complex. Treated wastewater was disposed of by spraying it on nearby unimproved pastures.
Recognizing the significant development plans for the 4S Ranch area, OMWD expanded the capacity of the facility to 2.0 MGD. As part of this expansion, OMWD also incorporated additional treatment phases of filtration and ultraviolet disinfection, improving water quality. OMWD required area developers to install the entire recycled water infrastructure for their planned communities.
Today, the facility produces over one million gallons of recycled water per day. It is delivered to irrigation customers in the southeastern portion of OMWD’s service area for use at HOA common areas, schools, parks, streetscapes, and golf courses. Together with recycled water purchased from nearby water and wastewater agencies to serve customers in portions of Encinitas and Carlsbad, OMWD now serves up to 15 percent of its customers’ total water demand with recycled water.
“For 20 years, OMWD has proudly served 4S Ranch and neighboring communities with high-quality recycled water, reducing the use of drinking water for irrigation,” said OMWD Vice President Matthew Hahn. “As California continues to face water supply challenges, the expansion of our recycled water system strengthens our water supply reliability and promotes sustainable water management.
OMWD serves up to 15% of its overall demand from recycled water treated through its award-winning 4S Ranch facility. Photo: Olivenhain Municipal Water District
Water recycling is the process of capturing and treating wastewater, for non-domestic purposes such as irrigation and industrial processes.
Water and wastewater agencies across San Diego County are developing or expanding their recycled water systems to reduce the need to import or develop other supplies.
Since 2003, OMWD has significantly increased its recycled water purchases through connections with neighboring agencies, including the City of San Diego, San Elijo Joint Powers Authority, Rancho Santa Fe Community Services District, and Vallecitos Water District. OMWD now serves over two and a half million gallons of recycled water every day. Each year, OMWD installs additional recycled water pipelines and converts more customers from potable water to recycled water.
By 2027, the volume of recycled water produced in the U.S. is projected to increase 37% from 4.8 billion gallons per day to 6.6 billion gallons per day, according to a recent survey by Bluefield Research.
In 2021, the Olivenhain Municipal Water District completed several replacement and upgrade projects at its 4S Ranch Water Reclamation Facility. Photo: Olivenhain Municipal Water District
As a founding member of the North San Diego Water Reuse Coalition, OMWD works with nine northern San Diego County water and wastewater agencies across jurisdictional boundaries to reduce the impact of water supply shortages on San Diego County’s $268 billion economy. This regional approach has proven successful in developing local projects as well as obtaining $9 million in funding, significantly reducing the costs of water recycling projects for North San Diego County water ratepayers.
In addition, the Coalition has also secured federal funding of $23.8 million to help cover costs for water reclamation projects through 2025.
Water and wastewater agencies across San Diego County including OMWD are developing or expanding water recycling projects, because every gallon of recycled water reduces the need to import or develop other supplies. Photo: Olivenhain Municipal Water District
As it looks forward to the next 20 years, OMWD continues to expand its recycled water capacity. It began construction this summer on three recycled water pipelines near Calle Barcelona in Carlsbad and in Village Park in Encinitas. Once complete, OMWD can convert up to 27 meters to recycled water, offsetting 12.7 million gallons of potable water used annually for irrigation.
OMWD has long pursued alternative water supplies like recycled water, a reliable, drought-proof approach for complementing existing water sources.
The San Diego County Water Authority has supported the development of recycling projects for decades, through membership in groups such as the WateReuse Association and collaborative efforts to promote local reuse efforts. Approximately 35,000 acre-feet of recycled water is beneficially reused within the Water Authority’s service area annually, and the volume is expected to continue growing as new and expanded plants come online.
(Editor’s note: The Olivenhain Municipal Water District is one of the San Diego County Water Authority’s 24 member agencies that deliver water across the San Diego County region.)
Encinitas, Calif. — Olivenhain Municipal Water District continues to expand its recycled water distribution by connecting to the Rancho Paseana horse ranch, providing the property with locally produced, tertiary treated recycled water for irrigation.
The Rancho Paseana horse ranch is located in Rancho Santa Fe and covers approximately 225 acres. Connecting this property to OMWD’s recycled water system is estimated to save as much as 163 million gallons of imported drinking water every year. The property will now use recycled water for irrigation of its equestrian facilities.
“Given the regulatory and climatic challenges that are impacting water supply reliability for all of California, it’s imperative that we continue to explore local supply alternatives that are resilient to drought,” said OMWD Board Secretary Larry Watt. “Every new customer we convert to recycled water decreases our demand for imported drinking water and therefore creates a more reliable system for our customers.”
OMWD produces up to two million gallons of recycled water daily at its 4S Ranch Water Reclamation Facility, and supplements this supply with recycled water purchased from neighboring water and wastewater agencies. By partnering with other agencies and sharing resources across jurisdictional boundaries, OMWD is able to continue expanding its recycled water distribution system. In total, OMWD meets up to 15 percent of its demands with recycled water.
San Diego County Water Authority executives Tish Berge and Kelley Gage were promoted Monday by General Manager Dan Denham. Berge moves from assistant general manager to deputy general manager after two years in her prior post. Gage, who served as director of water resources the past five years, is now assistant general manager.
Berge oversees finance, government relations, public affairs, administrative services, and human resources at the Water Authority.
San Diego County Water Authority Deputy General Manager Tish Berge. Photo: San Diego County Water Authority
Gage oversees the water resources, engineering, and operations & maintenance departments.
San Diego County Water Authority Assistant General Manager Kelley Gage. Photo: San Diego County Water Authority
“Tish and Kelley are veteran leaders in the water industry who bring a depth of knowledge and experience that will continue to benefit the region and our retail member agencies,” said Denham. “We have an exceptional leadership team at the Water Authority, with Tish and Kelley at the forefront.”
Berge joined the Water Authority as assistant general manager in February 2021, and since joining she secured $18.5 million in state funding and negotiated project labor agreements and memorandums of understanding with labor. From 2017 to 2021 Berge served as general manager of the Sweetwater Authority, leading the agency to earn a “District of Distinction” award from the Special District Leadership Foundation.
Before that, Berge served as Rincon del Diablo Municipal Water District’s director of administration and finance and as assistant general manager for San Elijo Joint Powers Authority. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Engineering from Harvey Mudd College, and a Master of Business Administration with an emphasis in finance from the Paul Merage School of Business at the University of California, Irvine. She is a Certified Special District Manager and Registered Professional Engineer.
Gage has been with the Water Authority for more than 19 years, working in the fields of water supply planning, environmental planning, and water and regulatory policy. She started with the agency in 2001, then rejoined the Water Authority as director of water resources in 2018. From 2015 to 2018, Gage served as the senior director of water resources at Eastern Municipal Water District. She has also worked for the Olivenhain Municipal Water District, and the State of Michigan Department of Environmental Quality. She has a bachelor’s degree in geology and environmental science from Michigan State University.
The Vista Irrigation District, one of the San Diego County Water Authority’s 24 member agencies, is celebrating its 100th anniversary.
In the 1920s, citrus and avocado farming in the Vista area increased so quickly that the growing region faced the real danger of running out of water. Completing the Henshaw Dam in 1923 made it possible for the Vista community to receive a reliable water source instead of relying on well water.
The arrival of the new water source sparked discussion about forming a water district to secure additional imported water to make continued growth possible. On August 28, 1923, voters approved the formation of the Vista Irrigation District (VID) in a landslide: 104 votes to four votes in a 100% voter turnout.
A state water board will consider a proposed cease-and-desist order for the egg processing facility at Pine Hill Egg Ranch in Ramona over concerns that contaminated water has been getting into stormwater basins and two nearby creeks, officials said.
The California State Water Resources Control Board will discuss the order at its Oct. 11 meeting. Public comment on the issue through Aug. 28 will be taken into consideration by the board, officials said.
The Vista Irrigation District, one of the San Diego County Water Authority’s 24 member agencies, is celebrating its 100th anniversary.
In the 1920s, citrus and avocado farming in the Vista area increased so quickly that the growing region faced the real danger of running out of water. Completing the Henshaw Dam in 1923 made it possible for the Vista community to receive a reliable water source instead of relying on well water.
The arrival of the new water source sparked discussion about forming a water district to secure additional imported water to make continued growth possible. On August 28, 1923, voters approved the formation of the Vista Irrigation District (VID) in a landslide: 104 votes to four votes in a 100% voter turnout.
Completion of the Henshaw Dam transformed North San Diego County, including the Vista area, in the 1920s. Photo: Vista Irrigation District
In its first year, VID served 337 customers. Today, VID serves water to more than 134,000 customers in a diversified community and robust economy and is celebrating its 100th anniversary on August 28, 2023.
“Vista Irrigation District is proud of its accomplishments over the last century and looks forward to providing reliable water service to the residents and businesses it serves for years to come,” said Board President Jo MacKenzie.
The Vista community celebrated the arrival of the first water from Lake Henshaw on February 27, 1926. Following the arrival of water, crops of all kinds were planted in increasing numbers. The Vista area became known as the “Avocado Capital of the World,” with six avocado packing houses in the area.
In June 1946, after several years of negotiations, Vista Irrigation District purchased the San Diego County Water Company. Included in the purchase was the 43,000-acre Warner Ranch, a former Spanish Land Grant, which includes Henshaw Dam and Lake Henshaw. The deal was driven by the economic motivation to find another, less costly source of water for VID’s customers.
Members of the Vista Irrigation District board visited Lake Henshaw in 1951. Photo: Vista Irrigation District
Drought conditions and population growth continued to press VID to seek additional sources of water. On February 16, 1954, the Vista Irrigation District became a member of the San Diego County Water Authority. It allowed VID to bring in water imported from the Colorado River and Northern California.
One year later, in 1955, Vista’s first suburban-style housing arrived in what had been an agricultural community. The Vista area began experiencing a decline in its avocado producing and packing due primarily to the industry’s economic decline and drought, which would continue into the 1960s. Many avocado groves were split into smaller parcels and sold to housing developers. The land was more valuable for homes.
An overview of downtown Vista looking southeast circa 1928. The region began to flourish with the arrival of water. Photo: Vista Historical Society and Museum
The people’s vote in 1923 revolutionized the small rural settlement held back by a lack of water. Over the years, Vista transformed itself from its agricultural origins to a thriving community with a diversified economic base and a revitalized downtown.
Today, Vista is a thriving community that continues to grow and develop many new activities and attractions, such as its popular Moonlight Amphitheatre. Photo: City of Vista
Vista Irrigation District has demonstrated its ability to adapt to these ever-changing landscapes over time and looks forward to many more successful years of service to the community. Through a century of service and stewardship, the Vista Irrigation District can take credit for its solid track record over the last century to continue many more successful years of service to the community.
(Editor’s note: The Vista Irrigation District is one of the San Diego County Water Authority’s 24 member agencies that deliver water across the metropolitan San Diego region. The District is celebrating “A Century of Service and Stewardship” on Saturday, September 9, at its Vista headquarters. The public is invited to attend.)
Litigation aims to protect ratepayers from ‘LAFCO tax’ while seeking out-of-court settlement
August 21, 2023 – The San Diego County Water Authority today filed suit against the San Diego Local Agency Formation Commission, or LAFCO, to protect the environment and to stop an imminent and illegal rate increase from harming farmers, working families, small businesses, and other water ratepayers across San Diego County.
The lawsuit challenges the decision by San Diego LAFCO to allow two local water agencies to leave the Water Authority without paying their fair share of costs incurred on their behalf over the past few decades. The “detachment” effort is the first of its kind in California, and it would shift approximately $140 million in costs from the Fallbrook and Rainbow water agencies to residents and businesses in the rest of the Water Authority’s service area over the next decade, raising water rates across the county as soon as January 2024.
According to the lawsuit, LAFCO failed to comply with several laws, including the County Water Authority Act, the Metropolitan Water District Act, the Cortese-Knox-Hertzberg Local Government Reorganization Act of 2000, and the California Environmental Quality Act, or CEQA. During the three-year process of detachment – also called “reorganization” – the Water Authority raised numerous substantive concerns about LAFCO’s approach and methods; however, LAFCO disregarded critical problems to reach its pre-determined goal of approving detachment.
“Litigation is a last resort, but LAFCO’s deeply flawed decision leaves us with no choice but to stand up for residents, businesses and the environment,” said Water Authority Board Chair Mel Katz, adding that LAFCO denied a request by the Water Authority to extend a key litigation deadline to accommodate settlement talks. “Even though we were forced to file this lawsuit, we have had several good-faith discussions with Fallbrook and Rainbow, and we look forward to continued talks in hopes of finding a mutually agreeable resolution outside the court process.”
The Water Authority’s lawsuit asserts that LAFCO failed to assess and/or address significant detachment-driven negative impacts to:
“LAFCO should have acted as a backstop to protect the region’s ratepayers from this misguided and outdated attempt by these agencies to secure cheaper water without regard to the loss of reliability to their ratepayers and at the expense of the entirety of the Water Authority, i.e., its other 22 members, its constituents, and the region as a whole,” according to the suit, filed in San Diego County Superior Court.
“Yet, LAFCO’s approach to this seismic shift in regional water supply planning was, at once, both slapdash and pre-determined, with many ‘invented’ processes and little attention paid to staff impartiality, the relevant statutory requirements, the need to disclose and analyze the environmental impacts under CEQA, or Rainbow and Fallbrook’s responsibility for their fair share of existing indebtedness the Water Authority incurred to serve their customers.”
Over the past 30 years, the Water Authority has created one of the most extensive, drought-resilient water supply systems in the nation based on regional demands to ensure water supply reliability for an arid region with few local natural water supplies. The effort worked, providing sufficient supplies across the Water Authority service area during a serious drought in 2020-22. It also came at the cost of a few billion dollars over the past three decades – investments approved by the Water Authority’s Board of Directors over the years with the understanding that each member agency would use and pay for its share of the supplies and facilities over the long-term.
LAFCO’s approval of the Fallbrook and Rainbow detachment applications in July 2023 included an arbitrary exit fee for the two districts. That LAFCO-designed fee fell $140 million short of covering the two agency’s costs over just the first decade of detachment even by LAFCO’s own flawed methodology based on years-old data and questionable projections.
“LAFCO staff reverse-engineered an exit fee that would impose the least possible economic burden on Fallbrook and Rainbow, ignoring the guidance provided by its own expert and relying on stale data and projections, despite the availability of updated revenue figures that could have been used in calculating the fee,” the lawsuit said. “Despite prior Commission discussion and the public discourse about the need for more data and options, LAFCO approved the Resolutions that adopted staff’s arbitrary number for exit fees without any substantial evidence or legal support.”
The detachment approval by LAFCO was also flawed in that it denied voters across the San Diego region the opportunity to vote on the proposal, in violation of state law. The disenfranchisement of more than 3 million residents showed “a clear intent by LAFCO to interfere with the constitutional right of voters to be heard on the imposition of the ‘LAFCO tax’,” according to the suit.
In addition, the Water Authority’s lawsuit argues that detachment creates a major change in water supply sources for Fallbrook and Rainbow that would cause significant adverse impacts on the environmentally degraded Bay-Delta by increasing water demands on that resource. According to the suit, “CEQA requires LAFCO to conduct an adequate environmental review prior to making any formal decision regarding projects subject to the Act. LAFCO failed to do so before approving the Resolutions, in violation of CEQA.”
To read the lawsuit, go to www.sdcwa.org/member-agencies/lafco-reorganization/.
The long-running debate over whether the Fallbrook and Rainbow communities should leave the San Diego County Water Authority to obtain cheaper rates ignores a very large elephant in the room — climate change.
If the two rural communities cast their lot with Riverside County, their agricultural economy will depend upon the Colorado River and the State Water Project, both of which have been reeling from increasingly severe droughts.
The long-running debate over whether the Fallbrook and Rainbow communities should leave the San Diego County Water Authority to obtain cheaper rates ignores a very large elephant in the room — climate change.
If the two rural communities cast their lot with Riverside County, their agricultural economy will depend upon the Colorado River and the State Water Project, both of which have been reeling from increasingly severe droughts.
