FPUD nixes treatment plant expansion study

The Fallbrook Public Utility District will not be proceeding with a study to provide budget-level estimates to expand the capacity of FPUD’s Treatment Plant 1.

The 4-0 board vote August 27, with Milt Davies absent, noted that the study was not needed to serve existing customers and recommended that when development necessitated the treatment plant’s expansion that development should pay for the cost of the study as well as for its share of the expansion costs.

“They decided that they would only move ahead if developers funded the study,” said FPUD chief engineer Joe Jackson.

“Our concern was that annexing other properties into the district did not benefit the ratepayers that were in the district,” said FPUD board member Don McDougal. “The current ratepayers shouldn’t be burdened with expansion costs.”

The study would have determined the cost to increase the plant treatment capacity from 2.7 million gallons per day to 3.1 million gallons per day. “We want to know that the cost would be to expand it in 100,000 gallon increments to a maximum of 3.1,” Jackson said.

“We weren’t opposed to it,” McDougal said of the study. “We would not do the study until the developer or a party that wanted the expansion came forward and they would fund the study,” said FPUD board member Don McDougal.

Plant 1 has a current permitted capacity for secondary treatment of 2.7 million gallons per day. The flowage currently averages approximately 1.9 million gallons per day. “We’ve done a study that shows that the current capacity of the facilities all meet the needs of the district for the future,” McDougal said.

FPUD staff had issued a request for proposals to perform the study, and had funding the study been approved August 27 a contract would have been awarded to Tetra Tech for $58,104.