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Three communities – San Diego, Oceanside and parts of East County – are entering the era of recycled water, at a crucial moment for local water politics. How that gets sorted out will be reflected in San Diegans’ water bills.

A decade ago, amid worries about the impact of drought on water supplies, those San Diego municipalities turned to recycled water, that is, turning sewage into drinking water. One local city, Carlsbad, also has a desalination plant, which turns seawater into drinking water.

It’s crunch time for negotiators from California and six other Western states trying to strike a deal before Feb. 14 on how to share the dwindling Colorado River. But four days of talks in a Salt Lake City conference room earlier this month did not appear to have sparked a breakthrough.

“We got tired of each other,” Utah’s negotiator, Gene Shawcroft, said last week at a public board meeting, days after the meeting ended. “And two of the days, we made some progress, but one day we went backwards almost as much progress as we made in two and a half days.”

Temporary Agricultural Water Restrictions During San Diego Aqueduct Shutdown January 24 through February 3.

Valley Center Municipal Water District directly contacted affected customers. If you were not directly contacted, you are likely not affected.

The Olivenhain Municipal Water District board of directors is considering seeking state permission to stop putting fluoride into its water supply.

Board members will discuss the proposal at their regular monthly meeting, which is set for 4 p.m. today at the district’s offices at 1966 Olivenhain Road. OMWD covers a 48-square-mile area and serves about 87,000 customers in Encinitas, Carlsbad, San Diego, Solana Beach and neighboring communities, the district’s website said. The district has been adding fluoride into its water supply since 2013, a staff report produced for the meeting said. Like other fluoridation efforts around the nation, OMWD’s Community Water Fluoridation program has been controversial.

Budget analysts for San Diego say city officials should demand big changes at the cash-strapped County Water Authority, including a thorough re-thinking of its entire operations and urgent action on out-of-state water sales.

The recommendations come with the city facing cumulative water rate hikes of 90% over six years, and the water authority predicting it will need to increase the rates it charges the city and other local agencies 100% to 150% by 2035.