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Rainbow MWD approves sewer agreement with Palomar College

The Rainbow Municipal Water District has approved a sewer service agreement with the Palomar Community College District for the Palomar College campus in Fallbrook.

Rainbow’s 4-0 board vote, April 24, with Bill Stewart absent, ratified the agreement which allows discharge of 100 equivalent dwelling units into Rainbow’s sewer system once the Horse Creek Lift Station is completed and which calls for the Palomar Community College District to reimburse the Rainbow Municipal Water District for the sewer stub D.R. Horton constructed for the campus.

The agreement includes conditions which must be met before providing sewer service to the campus including payment of construction costs and of Rainbow engineering and inspection fees, dedication of easements for Rainbow facilities and completion of a connection to the sewer system in the Pala Mesa area.

The sewer service agreement also identifies the potential future use of two flow monitoring manholes which can be used to measure flow and sample wastewater constituents which may be regulated in the future.

“That’s an agreement to finalize the construction for the new Palomar College facility,” Rainbow general manager Tom Kennedy said.

In 1987, the Hewlett-Packard Company and the Rainbow Municipal Water District executed a water and sewer services agreement which included a payment of $2,707,129 for construction of sewer service infrastructure in exchange for 950.57 equivalent dwelling units of sewer capacity.

The sewer infrastructure included a 12-inch force main and a 24-inch line to Gird Road, and the planning also included an 18-inch transmission waterline on Old Highway 395 with connections to the development. Rainbow approved agreements with subsequent ownership interests in 2002 and 2012.

In 2015, an updated agreement revised the assignment of sewer equivalent dwelling units to reflect three different developments on the former Hewlett-Packard property. The Palomar Community College District was allocated 100 equivalent dwelling units for its 81-acre property while D.R. Horton was given 754 equivalent dwelling units for the Horse Creek Ridge development and Passerelle has 96.57 equivalent dwelling units for its Campus Park project.

The revised document also incorporated a designed and improved lift station while revising the alignment of the waterline from between Horse Creek Ranch Road and state Route 76 to between Horse Creek Ranch Road and Pankey Place, which reflects environmental and cultural restrictions.

The water and sewer mains will run through the campus property and connect with existing mains along Horse Creek Ranch Road. Once the new lift station at SR-76 is operational the sewer main will connect to and convey flow from the Pala Mesa sewer under Interstate 15 to the recently completed sewer main underneath Horse Creek Ranch Road.

That new sewer main will allow the existing 12-inch sewer line east of I-15 to be abandoned, which will eliminate a significant source of inflow and infiltration to the sewer system in the area, so the replacement of the older sewer line will decrease the peak weather flows for that system and allow for more efficient use of the district’s sewer infrastructure. The Palomar Community College District is responsible for the construction of the public water and sewer mains through the campus property.

Rainbow’s board voted 5-0, Dec. 5, 2017, to approve a water and sewer construction agreement for the Palomar College campus which includes the construction of 680 feet of 12-inch sewer main, 40 feet of eight-inch main and five manholes which will become part of the Rainbow system. The tie-in to the existing Pala Mesa sewer will occur after the Horse Creek Lift Station is completed. The Palomar Community College District has submitted bonds and insurance certificates to guarantee that the infrastructure will meet Rainbow standards.

D.R. Horton constructed the sewer stub on the Palomar property when the main sewer for Horse Creek Ranch Road was installed. The agreement will reimburse D.R. Horton for that work with the Palomar Community College District, providing the reimbursement funding to the Rainbow Municipal Water District, which will forward that reimbursement to D.R. Horton.

Author Bio

Joe Naiman, Writer

Joe Naiman has been writing for the Village News since 2001

 

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