Also serving the communities of De Luz, Rainbow, Camp Pendleton, Pala and Pauma
The Association of California Water Agencies conference Dec. 2-5 in San Diego included Fallbrook Public Utility District (FPUD) assistant general manager Jack Bebee participating in a Dec. 3 panel on steelhead recovery programs.
ACWA’s Aquatic Resources Subcommittee scheduled the presentation: “Steelhead Recovery in Southern California: Noble Pursuit or Mission Impossible.” The panel was moderated by Jeremy Jungreis, who was once the water manager at Camp Pendleton and who now practices law on behalf of the Orange County firm Rutan and Tucker. Bebee was joined on the panel by National Marine Fisheries Service regional steelhead recovery coordinator Mark Capelli, State Water Resources Control Board senior counsel Dana Heinrich, and Vista Irrigation District water resources director Don Smith.
Local water suppliers are required to recover endangered and threatened species in Southern California rivers, including the Southern California steelhead trout. The panelists addressed the issues at stake when species preservation is in conflict with local water use and development, and the conflict will likely intensify after the State Water Resources Control Board implements its proposed plan to develop in-stream flow criteria for all major watersheds, which is expected to occur by 2019. “This is something where over the next few years there are going to be some real challenges,” Jungreis said.
Bebee focused his portion of the presentation on the potential impacts to the development of local water supplies in the Santa Margarita River watershed, where FPUD and Camp Pendleton are in the process of developing a Conjunctive Use Project. “The recovery plan is really a top-down approach,” he said. “The key is looking at hydrology.”
The Santa Margarita River Conjunctive Use Project being pursued by FPUD, Camp Pendleton, and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation would enhance groundwater recharge and recovery capacity within the lower Santa Margarita River basin and develop a program which would increase available water supplies for Camp Pendleton and FPUD.
Facilities within the lower basin would be constructed to capture additional surface runoff, which currently flows to the Pacific Ocean, during high stream flow periods. The surface water would be recharged through existing groundwater ponds and stored in groundwater basins during wet years while being “banked” for water rights statistics. The water would be used to augment water supplies during dry years, which would reduce the reliance on imported water.
The Conjunctive Use Project would include improvements to the diversion works, increased capacity to the headgate and the O’Neill Ditch, improvements to seven existing recharge ponds, installation of new groundwater production wells and gallery wells, water treatment at either an existing or an expanded or new water treatment plant, and a bidirectional pipeline which could deliver water to FPUD while also providing the Marine Corps base with an off-base water supply should conditions warrant.
The history of the Conjunctive Use Project includes environmental constraints which kept a dam from being built. A state engineer looking for potential reservoir sites identified one in Fallbrook in 1924, just after FPUD formed and, after World War II, the FPUD board decided to pursue building a dam on the Santa Margarita River. Camp Pendleton officials were concerned that the dam would cut off their water supply, and a joint agreement was reached in 1949.
Elsewhere in the federal government that agreement was not acceptable, and after several rounds of court cases a memorandum of understanding was signed in 1968 for a two-dam project where Fallbrook would obtain water supply and Camp Pendleton would receive water supply and flood control.
In 1969, Congress passed the National Environmental Protection Act, and by the time the documentation for the proposed dam was finished a reorganization of federal agencies handling water led to an unfunded office from which no documents left. The passage of the Endangered Species Act forced an update of the original environmental study, which was finally completed in 1983. That year’s legislation to authorize the project passed the U.S. Senate but died in the House Environmental Committee.
The bill was re-introduced in 1985, but the Reagan Administration wanted the project to be paid out of the Armed Services budget and Congressman Ron Dellums demanded another study of the water supply. The study, completed in 1988, said that Camp Pendleton should connect to the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California.
By that time, a development in Temecula was seeking a failsafe way to dispose livestream discharge of tertiary effluent. That led to the Four-Party Agreement with FPUD, Camp Pendleton, the Rancho California Water District, and the Eastern Municipal Water District. The agreement would provide 6,000 acre-feet of local water. The 1,400 acres FPUD purchased for a dam were eventually preserved as open space.
The delay has allowed for eight decades of Santa Margarita River flow recordkeeping to be incorporated into activities. Flows of up to 10,000 cubic feet per second (cfs) have been recorded for the river, but the average annual flow is 23.4 cfs while the median flow is 4.1 cfs. A flow of 200 cfs is required to ensure steelhead passage. “Even though we have good riparian habitat, we don’t necessarily have the hydrology,” Bebee said.
Bebee noted that habitat issues have been a challenge with the Conjunctive Use Project. “We’ve preserved a lot of the river,” he said.
Bebee added that steelhead protection measures may benefit other habitat. “What we might try to do for steelhead may have benefits on other critical species,” he said. “We really want to focus on some of the challenges.”
FPUD is the lead agency on certifying the Environmental Impact Report (EIR) which will meet California Environmental Quality Act requirements and the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) which satisfies National Environmental Protection Act requirements.
The draft environmental document which combines an EIR with an EIS was released for public review May 9. The public comment period closed June 23, and two comments were received. The Fallbrook Land Conservancy provided a letter of support which noted the environmental benefits of the project.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency expressed concern about insufficient information on potential impacts to water resources, habitat, and special status species while also requesting additional mitigation measures to reduce impacts to water quality, air quality, and biological resources and calling for the inclusion of a facility operating plan in the final EIS.
The final EIR/EIS requires responses to all comments, and Camp Pendleton has initiated consultation with the National Oceanographic and Atmosphere Administration fisheries as well as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Once the Camp Pendleton environmental issues are satisfied, modifications will be made to the draft document and the final EIR/EIS will return to the FPUD board for certification. Bebee currently expects the Camp Pendleton issues to be settled during January.
Bebee was one of multiple panelists who noted that the steelhead recovery requirements have added costs to projects. “That economic challenge to a water district is going to be very difficult to overcome,” he said.
“The barriers are great and the standard for recovery is high,” Smith said.
Bebee noted the irony of making projects cost-prohibitive. “If we lose that water supply project we have no reason to protect habitat,” he said.
Smith’s focus was the San Luis Rey River; the Vista Irrigation District owns and operates Lake Henshaw at the eastern end of the river as well as a diversion dam.
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