Also serving the communities of De Luz, Rainbow, Camp Pendleton, Pala and Pauma

CWA approves detachment conditions resolution

The San Diego County Water Authority will oppose the detachment of the Fallbrook Public Utility District and the Rainbow Municipal Water District from the SDCWA unless certain findings can be made.

A May 28 SDCWA board vote approved a resolution that the CWA will oppose the detachment unless it can be demonstrated that FPUD and Rainbow can guarantee that all obligations promised to their own ratepayers are met, that the detachment will not adversely affect the other 22 CWA member agencies or the county as a region, that the detachment and annexation into the Eastern Municipal Water District will not increase reliance on the Bay-Delta, and that the detachment will not reduce the CWA's voting power at Metropolitan Water District of Southern California board meetings.

“This resolution does not oppose these detachment applications. It lays out a process to thoroughly review,” Sandra Kerl, general manager of CWA, said. “Today’s resolution is intended to get the ball rolling.”

FPUD general manager Jack Bebee and Rainbow general manager Tom Kennedy, who are also their district’s representatives on the CWA board, cast the only votes against the resolution. Two city of San Diego representatives on the CWA board recused themselves: Jimmy Ayala is an executive for Pardee Homes, whose Meadowood project will be served by Rainbow, and Chris Cate is the San Diego City Council alternate on the Local Agency Formation Commission board.

FPUD has been part of the San Diego County Water Authority since the SDCWA was formed in 1944. Rainbow was formed in 1953 and received CWA membership in 1954. The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California began delivering water to San Diego County in 1947.

MWD’s San Diego Aqueduct conveys water to a delivery point 6 miles south of the Riverside County line, which allowed MWD and the CWA to provide equal contributions for the connection between MWD’s Colorado River Aqueduct and the San Vicente Reservoir in Lakeside.

The CWA northern boundary is the county line. All but one of FPUD’s connections are from MWD pipelines rather than from CWA pipelines and four of Rainbow’s eight connections are to the MWD portion of the pipeline.

The CWA’s supply rate is a melded rate which melds the cost of water delivered from MWD, water purchased from the Imperial Irrigation District under the Quantification Settlement Agreement, and water produced by the Claude “Bud” Lewis Carlsbad Desalination Plant in Carlsbad.

The CWA also has transportation, storage, and customer service charges along with fees and charges for fixed expenditures which are incurred even when water use is reduced.

FPUD and Rainbow believe they can reduce their cost of purchasing water – and thus their rates – by detaching from the CWA and becoming part of another MWD member agency.

“They would be completely dependent upon MWD water. Their customers would no longer have access to Water Authority supplies,” Kerl said.

Before the 1991 drought, approximately 95% of the CWA supply was purchased from MWD. Over nearly three decades the CWA has worked to diversify its supply and only 40% of the 2018 supply was from MWD. Additional projects along with a QSA schedule which provides for quantity increases are expected to reduce the MWD amount to 2% of the CWA's supply by 2035.

MWD supply is obtained either through the State Water Project, which transports water from Northern California including through the Bay-Delta, or from the Colorado River Aqueduct which runs from Parker to Lake Mathews.

Although the “March Miracle” in 1991 provided enough rainfall to cancel plans for mandatory water cutbacks, MWD had planned to cut back deliveries to the CWA by 50% including deliveries to customers with the agricultural discount by 90%.

MWD phased out its Interim Agricultural Water Program during a subsequent drought and the CWA responded with its Special Agricultural Water Rate program which provides a discount with the condition of cutbacks in a drought.

FPUD and Rainbow have filed applications with LAFCO to detach from the CWA and annex to the Eastern Municipal Water District, which is a member of MWD and purchases imported water directly from MWD. The Western Municipal Water District is also a member of MWD and provides retail water sales of MWD supply to the Elsinore Valley Municipal Water District and to the Rancho California Water District.

If FPUD and Rainbow detach from the CWA and join Eastern, their status would be similar to that of the two water districts which obtain MWD water from Western. The Eastern Municipal Water District currently covers 555 square miles and includes Hemet, Menifee, Murrieta, Perris, Romoland, San Jacinto, Temecula and Winchester. Eastern has more than 140,000 water customers.

The CWA at one time had wholesale districts selling water to non-CWA retail district members, and that was responsible for the Lakeside Water District becoming the first member to leave the CWA in 1957. Lakeside was an original member but partnered with two other water districts to create the wholesale district which eventually became the Padre Dam Municipal Water District, and Lakeside turned over its CWA membership to the wholesale district.

In 2006, the two remaining retail districts merged while detaching from Padre Dam, and Lakeside once again became a CWA member. That is also the most recent change in CWA membership. Mergers have also led to some agencies being eliminated from CWA membership; the most recent of those was the De Luz Heights Municipal Water District, which merged with FPUD in 1990.

In no previous case has territory been removed from the CWA boundaries when an agency ceased to be a CWA member.

“It’s a landmark effort and it needs to be very thought out,” Kerl said. “I believe that LAFCO would be benefited by guidance from this board.”

Although Bebee and Kennedy opposed the resolution, they believe that the list of issues will facilitate discussion regarding the detachment conditions.

“It’s helpful to have all this,” Bebee said.

“We look forward to talking with the Water Authority about that,” Kennedy said. “We are happy to sit down and talk.”

LAFCO staff analyzes any proposed reorganization both for service impacts and for financial impacts. The analysis will conclude with the preparation of a report and a staff recommendation. The LAFCO board will hold a public hearing and may or may not adopt the staff recommendation.

The analysis will include the economic impacts not only for FPUD and Rainbow but also to the CWA and the other member agencies. The LAFCO board and staff members prefer that FPUD and Rainbow work out financial terms to compensate the CWA and the 22 remaining agencies, although LAFCO would consider financial terms if no agreement is reached.

Author Bio

Joe Naiman, Writer

Joe Naiman has been writing for the Village News since 2001

 

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