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Lake Mead and Lake Powell – which provide storage for the Lower Basin states of Nevada, Arizona and California – are about 51 percent full. Photo: SDCWA Drought Talks

Bureau Executive Makes Case for Renewing Drought Talks in Colorado Basin

/in , /by by Darren Simon

El Centro, Calif. – U.S. Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Brenda W. Burman delivered a sobering message about the risks facing the Colorado River system and the need for action considering long-term drought conditions during an Imperial Irrigation District Board meeting on May 22.

In her first presentation to the IID Board of Directors since her confirmation as commissioner in November, Burman said it’s time to restart the stalled basin-wide drought contingency planning talks to address the threat of shortage on the river. Her discussion was filled with stark predictions for the river system should drought conditions continue, along with hopeful notes that worst-case shortage scenarios could be averted through conservation efforts.

Terry Fulp, the bureau’s regional director of the Lower Colorado River Basin, joined Burman at the IID meeting. Fulp said Lake Mead and Lake Powell – which provide storage for the Lower Basin states of Nevada, Arizona and California – are about 51 percent full.

Both lakes were near capacity in 1999, then dropped by half in just five years. That sudden loss of storage led to the development of the interim guidelines for managing a shortage on the river in 2007. In the years since, Fulp said, the river system has met demands despite the ongoing drought.

However, a shortage declaration may be triggered in the next two years because Lake Mead is barely over 1075 feet above sea level, the point at which a shortage could be declared. Fulp said Lake Mead would likely already be below the 1075-foot mark if not for conservation efforts across the Colorado River Basin.

Call to action on the river

Burman said she recognizes that drought contingency discussions have “fallen off,” but she said they need to start again with the goal of expanding conservation efforts throughout the river system. She said actions taken now will benefit water users today and serve the needs of the river system decades into the future, just as water users today benefit from the actions of the pioneers who built the system under the Boulder Canyon Act of 1928

“There absolutely needs to be action on the Colorado River,” she said. “The risk is too great.”

Under questioning from IID board members, Burman said “there is room” in drought contingency discussions to include additional storage for IID in Lake Mead (which IID has advocated for), and there could be flexibility in how that storage water is created.

When pressed on the Salton Sea, Burman said a memorandum of understanding between the state and federal governments remains in effect to address issues at the sea. She added that the federal government remains committed to the MOU even though the state is leading ongoing Salton Sea restoration efforts.

Burman said time will tell if drought contingency talks restart and whether agencies can reach agreement on the critical issues related to conservation and storage. To the extent that there is additional water conservation in the Imperial Valley, that likely would reduce flows to the Salton Sea – and that in turn would raise important questions about how reduced inflows would be mitigated to minimize impacts on sea levels.

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Water Authority Earns Regional Awards for Construction Project

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San Diego, Calif. – The regional chapter of the American Public Works Association today conferred two Project of the Year awards on the San Diego County Water Authority for a pipeline upgrade in Scripps Ranch and a rebuilt pump station near Miramar Reservoir, both of which will help ensure reliable water deliveries across the San Diego region.

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Region United To Oppose State’s $135 Million Per Year Water Tax Proposal

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San Diego, Calif. – Business, civic, and water industry officials from across San Diego County have joined forces to oppose a proposed $135 million per year tax on drinking water in California that would harm ratepayers and likely result in a flood of additional taxes on the state’s most precious natural resource.

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Water Authority Chairman Mark Muir (center) speaks to reporters at a news conference of regional leaders announcing their opposition to a proposed state water tax. Photo: Water Authority

San Diego County Coalition of Leaders Opposes Tax on Drinking Water

/in /by by Water News Network staff

A coalition of business, civic and water industry officials from across San Diego County has joined forces to oppose a proposed $135 million per year tax on drinking water in California that would harm ratepayers and likely result in a flood of additional taxes on the state’s most precious natural resource.

During a news conference this morning at the County Administration Center, regional leaders offered other funding solutions to improve water quality in poor, rural areas of the state without adding another tax burden to residents in one of the nation’s most expensive states.

See video highlights of the news conference here.

Supervisor Kristin Gaspar, chairwoman of the San Diego County Board of Supervisors, joined officials from the San Diego County Water Authority and several of its member agencies, the San Diego County Taxpayers Association, the Industrial Environmental Association, and several other groups. In all, more than 30 agencies and organizations across the region have signed a letter to legislative leaders opposing the drinking water tax plan.

Encinitas City Councilmember Mark Muir, chair of the San Diego County Water Authority’s Board of Directors and a member of the San Dieguito Water District Board, warned that the current water tax proposal would set a dangerous precedent. “It would be the camel’s nose under the tent; what begins as a modest increase could quickly grow larger and larger as more projects and programs try to get into the tent,” he said. “We’ve already seen proposals in Sacramento that could add more than $15 a month to residential water bills.”

The tax proposal is being advanced through Senate Bill 623 by state Sen. William Monning (Carmel) and a Brown Administration budget trailer bill related to safe drinking water. The drinking water tax would initially raise about $135 million a year to help provide clean, safe water in disadvantaged communities, mostly in the Central and Salinas valleys, where groundwater has been contaminated by farming operations. In addition, approximately $22 million would be generated by a tax on fertilizer and confined dairy facilities. State legislators are expected to vote on the tax by mid-June, though the issue could extend into late summer.

Read More:

Fox 5 San Diego: Local Leaders Protest Plan to Tax Tap Water

CBS 8 News: County Water Authority Opposes Drinking Water Tax

NBC 7 San Diego: Calif. Water Tax Proposal Faces Opposition From Local Leaders

KGTV 10 News: Proposed California Tap Water Tax Meets Opposition

KPBS Radio: San Diego Leaders Gather To Oppose Water Tax

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Transparency Certificate of Excellence Awarded to Vallecitos Water District

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San Marcos, Calif. – The Vallecitos Water District received the District Transparency Certificate of Excellence by the Special District Leadership Foundation (SDLF) in recognition of its outstanding efforts to promote transparency and good governance. California SDLF Public Affairs Field Coordinator Chris Palmer and California SDLF Board Member Jo MacKenzie were on hand to recognize Vallecitos for completing the essential requirements.

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The $24 million Pipeline 5 Relining Project in Fallbrook is expected to conclude in summer 2019. Photo: San Diego County Water Authority

Pipeline Upgrades Coming to Fallbrook in Fall 2018

/in /by by Water News Network staff

A major water pipeline that runs through rural North County is getting the water industry’s version of a makeover.

The San Diego County Water Authority plans to start relining one of its regional wholesale water pipelines in fall 2018, extending its service life by more than 75 years. Construction is expected to last about one year, and most of the $24 million project will take place underground with few impacts to nearby residents.

Relining projects rehabilitate segments of pipelines based on their age and the need for improvements. Proactive assessments help the Water Authority avoid pipeline failures by identifying potential risks before they cause problems.

The Pipeline 5 Relining Project involves upgrading approximately 2.3 miles of pipeline in eight segments along a 9.5-mile stretch of pipeline that runs through Fallbrook. The Water Authority’s project team hosted an open house for residents and answered their questions at the Fallbrook Library on May 1.

Additional community presentations are set for May 21 at the Bonsall Chamber of Commerce, May 22 at the Rainbow Municipal Water District’s Board of Directors meeting, and the Fallbrook Chamber of Commerce, and June 18 at the Fallbrook Planning Group.

Relining effort saves money

The Water Authority manages 310 miles of large-diameter pipeline to convey water throughout San Diego County. Approximately 82 miles of these pipelines were installed between the early 1960s and late 1980s. These pre-stressed concrete cylinder pipes (PCCP) are made from a combination of steel and concrete.

First used during World War II to help minimize the use of steel, this pipeline type is used extensively around the world. Numerous failures in similar pipes nationwide prompted the Water Authority to take proactive measures to reinforce its PCCP pipelines with steel liners starting in the early 1990s.

Proactive assessments help the Water Authority avoid pipeline failures by identifying potential risks before they cause problems. To date, the Asset Management Program has saved water ratepayers more than $200 million by prioritizing repairs, avoiding unnecessary work and maximizing the service life of the region’s large-diameter water conveyance system, which includes pipelines ranging in diameter from 20 inches to 9 feet.

Fallbrook work mostly underground

Water Authority construction crews will conduct most of the work underground, inside the pipe. They will access the pipe by excavating, establishing, and entering the pipeline through nine access sites, or portals. The portals are excavated pits 25-feet wide by 60-feet long and spaced roughly 525 to 2,500 feet apart. At each portal site, 40 feet of existing pipe is removed to permit access inside the pipe.

Work isn’t active at all portals at the same time; crews will shift from one portal to another. Much of the work associated with the project will be within public street rights-of-way.

When the project is finished, the Water Authority will have rehabilitated approximately 47 miles of the 82.5 miles of PCCP in its system.

More information about the Fallbrook project, including details about upcoming meetings is on the Water Authority’s project webpage.

 

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Water Authority’s Proposed 2019 Rate Increases Smallest in Years

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San Diego, Calif. – Water rate increases proposed by the San Diego County Water Authority staff for 2019 are among the smallest in the past 15 years due to financial benefits secured through litigation against the Los Angeles-baed Metropolitan Water District of Southern California and the Water Authority’s planned use of its Rate Stabilization Fund.

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Opposition is growing across California to the proposed state water tax. Photo: Pixabay/Creative Commons State water tax opposition

State Water Tax Opposition Grows Across California

/in , /by by Water News Network staff

San Diego, Calif. – Civic and business leaders statewide are increasingly expressing opposition to the proposed state drinking water tax.

They call on the state’s leaders to find a better way to fund clean water than adding a tax, as proposed by state Senate Bill 623 and the Brown administration’s Budget Trailer Bill. A chief concern is that a precedent-setting tax today would lead to more taxes on water in the future.

Here’s a sampling of anti-tax perspectives from around the state.

Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, Sacramento: “It is unconscionable that California, which has a record-high $130 billion General Fund budget with a $6 billion surplus, can’t provide clean drinking water to a million people using existing resources. Is this not the first role of government, providing a public good essential to life? The statewide tax would represent a diversion of local ratepayer dollars to an out-of-control state bureaucracy that has little accountability.”
John Coleman, past president, Association of California Water Agencies; board member, East Bay Municipal Utility District, Oakland: The process through which this tax has been proposed is also problematic. Proponents have been planning to insert this tax for months, but kept all details under wraps until the last few weeks of session … To impose a statewide tax on Californians’ water bills would turn local water agencies into taxation entities that send money to Sacramento

The San Diego Union-Tribune editorial board: “Californians are told lawmakers can’t commit themselves to devoting a tiny fraction of the state budget to honor the intent of the measure, so a new category of taxation must be created. Baloney. Yes, of course, the water problem must be addressed — but with honesty, not subterfuge.

Haney Hong, president and CEO of the San Diego County Taxpayers Association: “Twenty percent of the funding for this correction for the water source, which is an important thing to do, comes from the polluters, and the rest, the 80 percent, comes from the rest of us in California. That’s not how this should work.”

Mark Muir, chair of the San Diego County Water Authority’s Board of Directors: “Make no mistake: This is a tax, and taxing Californians for something as essential as water does not make sense. It will increase the cost of water, making it less affordable. It also will place undo upward pressure on food prices. Call it a lose-lose for low-income residents – and everyone else.”

The Agoura Hills/Calabasas Acorn Editorial Board: “Water districts are caught in a squeeze between environmentalists who want the cleanest water possible released into the state’s waterways—a demand that comes at a high cost—and consumers who are tired of footing the bill … And all of this doesn’t even take into account the future cost of the twin tunnel megalith that will channel fresh water underneath the Sacramento Bay Delta for supposedly more efficient delivery to farms and urban areas in the South. What’s that going to cost? Customer costs are already too high.”

Assemblyman Philip Chen (Brea): “Supporters of SB623 will argue that this legislation will help those who are poor, disadvantaged, and reside in rural areas. It does not … Adding a tax on drinking water will only make clean and safe water less affordable for all Californians. According to the California Tax Foundation, since the beginning of this year Sacramento lawmakers have introduced more than 90 bills that would cost taxpayers more than $370 billion annually in higher taxes and fees. Now these lawmakers want to add another tax but this time on your drinking water. Will there be anything that is not taxed in California?”

Seventy-three percent of Californians opposed the state water tax in a recent poll.

 

 

 

 

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FPUD Now Accepting Applications for Paid High School Summer Internship

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Fallbrook, Calif. – Students at Fallbrook High, Oasis High, or Ivy High schools can now apply online for a paid summer internship program at Fallbrook Public Utility District. The internship is available to any student enrolled in one of those schools as a junior or senior for the upcoming 2018-2019 school year.

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Once the liners are installed, they are welded together, grout is injected to fill the space between the liners and the original pipe, and cement mortar is applied on the inside of the steel liner. Photo: SDCWA

Innovative Relining Program Reduces Cost, Extends Pipeline Service Life

/in , /by by Nathan Faber, O&M Manager; Neena Kuzmich, P.E., Principal Engineer; and Colin Kemper, Engineer P.E., San Diego County Water Authority

When the San Diego County Water Authority installed major sections of 66- to 96-inch diameter pipelines in the 1960s, 70s and early 80s, the regional water wholesale agency used cost-saving pipeline material – a combination of steel wires, thin steel pipe, and concrete widely known as Pre-Stressed Concrete Cylinder Pipe (PCCP). Decades later, agencies around the globe realized that some pre-stressed concrete cylinder pipe didn’t last as long as advertised and could fail catastrophically.

The Water Authority deployed a multi-faceted response, using high-tech asset management tools to identify pipeline sections with the greatest risk of failure and a targeted pipeline relining strategy that minimizes community impacts during construction. The agency’s relining program started in the 1980s and ramped up in the early 2000s.  Today, it is on track to complete more than 45 miles of relined pipeline in the next few months.

The current project is taking place deep below the urban streets of La Mesa, California, where the Water Authority and its contractor, L.H. Woods & Sons, Inc., are on schedule to conclude by summer. The delicate, 4.3-mile operation started in September 2017 after years of cross-departmental preparation to ensure the work on the $28.6 million contract could be completed in a cost-efficient fashion without impacting water deliveries. Instead of trenching and removing the old pipe, crews excavate 13 entry portals at strategic points, then insert steel liners into the pipeline using a specially designed cart. When the pipe installation work is done, the portals are backfilled, the streets are repaved, and the pipeline is put back in service for at least another 75 years – at about half the cost of a conventional pipeline replacement project.

Looking for weak spots in system

To identify sections of its 310-mile large-diameter pipeline system that require relining, the Water Authority relies on a suite of high-tech monitoring tools that are part of its pioneering asset management strategy.

Weak spots are often first detected with a “PING!” indicating a snapped steel wire in the PCCP. That sound is relayed through acoustic fiber optic cables – installed as an early warning system inside pipelines – so that Water Authority staff can be alerted by email and cell phone. Each ping is matched with results from Remote Field Eddy Current assessments and visual inspection data, then mapped using Google Earth.

With that information, pipeline segments are plotted on a risk matrix showing the condition and impact of failure. The sections with high risk and high consequence of failure are prioritized for upgrades. On occasion, emergency repairs are required where failure is imminent and the risks are significant. Other, less risky sections continue to be monitored and managed to maximize their service life. This risk-based approach has allowed the Water Authority to avoid more than $200 million in infrastructure spending.

Planning for success requires coordination

Planning for the current project started in 2011. The long lead time was necessary, in part, to coordinate with two of the Water Authority’s retail member agencies that would not be able to take water deliveries from the pipeline when it was down for upgrades. Local or stored supplies in surface water reservoirs could be used in case they were needed during the project.

Critical planning elements also included accounting for other utility assets, property lines and easement rights, environmental impacts, traffic flow and construction noise. Coordination with the local power utility, the regional transit agency and local city officials helped align schedules of concurrent projects, timely address unforeseen conditions and establish relationships to endure potential mid-course project revisions.

During the design phase, Water Authority staff also identified environmental resources requiring protection and mitigation measures. For instance, noise impacts need to be addressed during construction with the installation of large wooden sound walls around work sites. In addition, the plan included with silt fences, fiber rolls and street sweeping to protect nearby waterways from storm water runoff. In addition, an environmental monitor routinely assesses the contractor’s compliance with environmental commitments.

Pipeline relining program extends use 75 years

Relining is often an elegant solution to pipeline deterioration, but it’s not a simple one. The Water Authority’s solution is to use multiple portals, or entry points, to access sections of the pipeline at strategic spots. The footprint of each of the 13 portals for the current project is approximately 25 feet by 60 feet. Photo: SDCWA

Relining is often an elegant solution to pipeline deterioration, but it’s not a simple one. The Water Authority’s solution is to use multiple portals, or entry points, to access sections of the pipeline at strategic spots. The footprint of each of the 13 portals for the current project is approximately 25 feet by 60 feet. Photo: SDCWA

Relining is often an elegant solution to pipeline deterioration, but it’s not a simple one. Crews can’t just insert a single 4.3-mile-long steel liner, partly due to curves and changes in elevation along the route. The Water Authority’s solution is to use multiple portals, or entry points, to access sections of the pipeline at strategic spots. The footprint of each of the 13 portals for the current project is approximately 25 feet by 60 feet. When accounting for laydown, staging and other related work areas, the project encompasses 12.5 acres.

Each portal serves as ground zero for construction, including site excavation and removal of two 20-foot sections of existing pipe to make room for work crews operating the specially designed liner carts. The initial project design identified portals located roughly 2,000 feet apart. However, the contractor adapted its liner carts to better navigate curves and elevation changes. This innovative approach meant the project required fewer portals, saving money and significantly reducing impacts to nearby neighborhoods.

Once the liners are installed, they are welded together, grout is injected to fill the space between the liners and the original pipe, and cement mortar is applied on the inside of the steel liner. To complete the work, new 20-foot sections of the pipe are installed – reconnecting the pipeline through each portal. Then, the portal areas are backfilled, and the portals are returned to like-new condition.

While construction crews carry out that work, the asset management team stays on mission by using removed pipe to perform destructive load testing of pipe sections. On the current project, testing showed steel relining can withstand advanced deterioration of the outside pipe – helping to confirm that steel liners can last at least 75 years.

Reducing neighborhood impacts during construction activities

While the number of portals in the current project was reduced, construction activities remained significant for several months in the highly urbanized area. Four portals were in a four-lane road, temporarily reducing traffic to one lane in each direction. Additionally, two portals were adjacent to major retail parking lots, and six others were less than 100 feet from homes.

From design through construction, the Water Authority conducted significant public outreach, including open house events for neighbors to meet agency staff; distribution of postcards and doorhangers to thousands of neighbors; and the development of “Open During Construction” signs for retail centers. This proactive outreach kept stakeholders engaged with project activities, helping to reduce complaints and resolve issues quickly.

When the current relining project wraps up this summer, the Water Authority will have relined more than half of its pre-stressed concrete cylinder pipelines – a critical part of the agency’s commitment to ensure a safe and reliable water supply that sustains a $220 billion regional economy and the quality of life for 3.3 million residents.