Spaletta chosen as FPUD special counsel for Santa Margarita water rights

The Fallbrook Public Utility District will use Jennifer Spaletta as FPUD’s special counsel for matters involving Santa Margarita River water rights.

A 5-0 FPUD board vote, Oct. 28, approved the legal services agreement with Spaletta Law. Spaletta replaces Martha Lennihan, who retired.

“We just retained another water rights attorney with a lot of experience and knowledge in the area,” FPUD general manager Jack Bebee said.

A state engineer looking for potential reservoir sites identified one in Fallbrook in 1924, just after the district formed, and after World War II the FPUD board decided to pursue building a dam on the Santa Margarita River.

U.S. Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton officials were concerned that the dam would cut off their water supply, and a joint agreement was reached in 1949. But elsewhere in the federal government, the agreement was not acceptable.

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.

Before the dam could be built, new federal environmental regulations delayed the project and the dam has since been replaced by the Santa Margarita River Conjunctive Use Project which will enhance groundwater recharge and recovery capability within the lower Santa Margarita River basin and increase available water supplies for FPUD and Camp Pendleton.

FPUD’s board approved a settlement agreement on the water rights case in December 2017. U.S. District Court judge Gonzalo Curiel, who is currently presiding over the case, approved the settlement in April 2019.

“The settlement is ongoing,” Bebee said. “We need to have an attorney just to deal with the ongoing filings.”

In addition to FPUD and Camp Pendleton, the Pechanga Indian Reservation, the Eastern Municipal Water District, the Rancho California Water District, the Western Municipal Water District and the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California have water rights from the Santa Margarita River.

“We retain special counsel for water rights,” Bebee said.

As a child, Spaletta’s family was involved in citrus and olive farming. After attending Lindsay High School in the town best known for olive production, Spaletta graduated from California State Polytechnic University San Luis Obispo in 1995 with a major in agricultural business and a minor in water science.

In 1998, she obtained both a master’s degree in agricultural and resource economics and a law degree from the University of California Davis. Spaletta and her husband farm wine grapes and walnuts in the Lodi area, and she is a director of the Lodi District Grape Growers Association.

Her law firm is located in Lodi. Spaletta worked for the Stockton law firm of Herum-Crabtree, which is now Herum-Crabtree-Suntag, before founding Spaletta Law in 2013. In addition to public agencies, Spaletta has represented farming operations, industrial manufacturing companies and food processing companies.

Lennihan’s office was located in Sacramento. Gordon Tinker was FPUD’s general manager when Lennihan was appointed as the district’s special counsel for water rights in the 1990s.

Any time Spaletta acts on FPUD’s behalf in a legal matter, FPUD will be billed at $325 an hour and, if her associate is used, FPUD will be billed $225 an hour while any paralegal work will result in a billing of $75 per hour. FPUD will also pay any travel, postage, delivery fee and photocopying charges related to Spaletta’s work with the district.