Encinitas, Calif. — Fourth-grade students living or attending school in Olivenhain Municipal Water District’s service area are invited to enter its 28th annual poster contest. The contest is held in participation with other North County water agencies, and will accept entries until April 5. This year’s theme is “Love Water, Save Water.”
As part of his efforts to create a more sustainable future for all of us, Mayor Todd Gloria today publicly released a new analysis of San Diego’s future water needs that indicates that the City will develop more than 50% of its water locally by 2045, in large part due to the Pure Water recycling program. This will be a dramatic increase in local water supply, which currently requires the City to purchase 85% to 90% of its water from imported sources.
To assist customers with costs associated with leak repairs and to help conserve our most precious resource – water, Sweetwater Authority is offering rebates of up to $75 for repairs made in March 2021. The special month-long rebate is in celebration of the national Fix a Leak Week, which serves as an annual reminder to check household plumbing fixtures and irrigation systems for leaks.
An annual contest during a pandemic is not an easy thing to conduct. With students challenged in the classroom, mostly learning from home, teachers’ time is stretched thin.
The San Diego County Water Authority’s Board of Directors today announced a plan to distribute a rebate of $44.4 million to its 24 member agencies across the region after receiving a check for that amount from the Los Angeles-based Metropolitan Water District of Southern California to pay legal damages and interest.
The money resulted from the Water Authority’s decade-long rate case litigation in state Superior Court seeking to compel MWD to set legal rates and repay overcharges. The Water Authority won several critical issues in cases covering 2011-2014 and was deemed the prevailing party, which means the agency is also owed legal fees and charges in addition to the recent damages and interest payment from MWD.
The court rulings will also help avoid future overcharges and thereby minimize future disputes over MWD’s unlawful Water Stewardship Rate for transporting the Water Authority’s independent water supplies through MWD facilities. Those charges – if they had continued – would have cost San Diego County residents more than $500 million over the life of the Water Authority’s water delivery contract with MWD.
“This day has been a long time coming,” said Water Authority Board Chair Gary Croucher. “We never wanted to litigate these issues – but if we had not had the courage to do so, MWD would still be collecting the illegal fees and we would not have money to give back to local retail water agencies across the region.”
Per today’s decision by the Water Authority’s Board, the $44.4 million will be returned to member agencies in proportion to their overpayments between 2011-2014. The Water Authority does not have a say in how member agencies use the refunds. The amount of legal fees and costs owed to the Water Authority is yet to be determined.
In addition to damages and interest, the rate case lawsuits generated other substantial benefits, such as requiring an increase in the Water Authority’s preferential rights to MWD water by approximately 100,000 acre-feet a year, equivalent to about twice the annual production of the $1 billion Carlsbad Desalination Project.
In February 2020, the Water Authority’s Board of Directors voted to dismiss certain issues from the litigation after securing more than $350 million in local project subsidy benefits for the San Diego region. In doing so, the Water Authority acknowledged the MWD Board action to stop imposing its Water Stewardship Rate for transporting the Water Authority’s independent supplies, thus resolving for now that issue in future rate years.
As the lawsuits wind down, the Water Authority is working collaboratively with MWD member agencies across Southern California to update MWD’s long-term water resource and financial plans. MWD’s Integrated Resources Plan, known as the IRP, will be the agency’s roadmap for the future. The Water Authority is advocating for inclusion of updated data and plans by many MWD member agencies to develop local water supplies such as the Water Authority and its member agencies have done over the past two decades and will continue to do in the future.
In January, Sweetwater Authority conducted a controlled transfer of water from Loveland Reservoir in Alpine, Calif., to Sweetwater Reservoir in Spring Valley, Calif. The transfer captured 2.7 billion gallons of local water. This same amount of water is enough to help supply our customers with 12-18 months of water.
February 25, 2021 – The San Diego County Water Authority’s Board of Directors today unanimously approved a formal resolution reaffirming its longstanding support for potable reuse and water recycling projects developed by local member agencies across the region.
The Helix Water District Board of Directors approved funding on February 24 for the district’s first financial customer assistance program which will help east county residents impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
February 11, 2021 – Veteran water industry executive Tish Berge is joining the San Diego County Water Authority as assistant general manager, bringing experience from every aspect of water utility management to serve the region. Berge is currently general manager of the Sweetwater Authority, one of the Water Authority’s 24 member agencies. Berge starts her new role February 22 alongside Deputy General Manager Dan Denham and General Manager Sandra L. Kerl.
Encinitas, Calif. — Olivenhain Municipal Water District has connected the newly developing Santa Fe Heights neighborhood to
its recycled water system, supplying the community with locally produced recycled water.
“We are excited to see another neighborhood begin using recycled water for irrigation,” said OMWD Board Secretary Ed
Sprague. “Using recycled water is key for long-term sustainability of our water supply.”
Sweetwater Authority Logo 2019