The Fallbrook Public Utility District will be funding some of its Capital Improvement Program expenses with revenue bonds. A 5-0 FPUD board vote Jan. 22 authorized the issuance of the 2024 Water Revenue Bonds, approved the form of the financing documents, and authorized FPUD staff to finalize and execute the financing documents.
With the new year, Fallbrook residents are seeing a reduction in their water rates as a result of the detachment from the San Diego County Water Authority (SDCWA) — the so-called “water divorce.”
The San Diego County Water Authority has agreed to a settlement with the Rainbow Municipal Water District (RMWD) and Fallbrook Public Utility District (FPUD), allowing both to detach from the Water Authority while dropping all litigation.
In exchange, the two districts agreed to an immediate $25 million payment plus related costs and fees. The settlement minimizes rate impacts on San Diego County’s 3.3 million residents while avoiding expensive litigation. It also provides institutional certainty moving forward.
“While the majority of SDCWA’s remaining 22-district membership remains opposed to detachment, they agree that this settlement makes the best of a bad situation,” said Mel Katz, chairman of the Water Authority Board. “While we continue to believe the detachment award should have been higher, RMWD and FPUD are required to pay all costs above the amount ordered by the Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCO) in addition to its entire exit fee upfront, meaning there will be no immediate rate impacts for ratepayers.”
As part of the settlement agreement, both RMWD and FPUD have agreed to pay all costs related to the decommissioning of Water Authority facilities not being used post-detachment. The two agencies have agreed to indemnify and hold harmless the Water Authority against any future claims related to detachment. Both will complete all administrative, technical, and infrastructure-related tasks before the facilities can be transferred.
These settlement conditions exceed the conditions prescribed by LAFCO as part of its conditions for detachment.
In response to LAFCO’s July decision to approve RMWD and FPUD’s request for detachment, Assemblymember Tasha Boerner introduced and passed Assembly Bill 399: The Water Ratepayer Protection Act. Mayor Todd Gloria and the City of San Diego supported AB 399.
This legislation was signed into law by Governor Gavin Newsom this fall and will go into effect in January 2024. It will require a countywide election to be held for a detachment of a local district moving forward. Its provisions protect the long-term integrity of the Water Authority and the San Diego region’s ratepayers.
The next time a member of a regional water agency wants to secede, a majority of voters across the entire wider district will have to approve the change under a bill signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Late last week the governor signed Assembly Bill 399, legislation authored by Encinitas Democrat Tasha Boerner and originally designed to thwart an effort by water officials in Fallbrook and Bonsall from divorcing from the San Diego County Water Authority.
Newsom signed the bill without issuing any public comment.
State lawmakers on Tuesday passed a bill that would require voters across broadwater authorities to allow individual districts to withdraw before they can legally detach from regional agencies.
But the legislation may be too late to prevent two North County water districts from divorcing from the San Diego County Water Authority.
The San Diego County Water Authority filed suit Monday to stop the rural Fallbrook and Rainbow water districts from leaving the county system, citing environmental harm under the California Environmental Quality Act.
The lawsuit filed in Superior Court challenges a decision by the San Diego Local Agency Formation Commission to allow the two districts to join Riverside County without paying what the Water Authority says is their fair share of water-reliability investments.
The “detachment” effort is the first of its kind in California and would shift approximately $140 million in costs to the rest of the Water Authority’s customers.
The long-running debate over whether the Fallbrook and Rainbow communities should leave the San Diego County Water Authority to obtain cheaper rates ignores a very large elephant in the room — climate change.
If the two rural communities cast their lot with Riverside County, their agricultural economy will depend upon the Colorado River and the State Water Project, both of which have been reeling from increasingly severe droughts.
The long-running debate over whether the Fallbrook and Rainbow communities should leave the San Diego County Water Authority to obtain cheaper rates ignores a very large elephant in the room — climate change.
If the two rural communities cast their lot with Riverside County, their agricultural economy will depend upon the Colorado River and the State Water Project, both of which have been reeling from increasingly severe droughts.
In December, just six months before the two communities’ case was heard by the Local Agency Formation Commission, the State Water Project announced that for the second year in a row, it would provide only 5% of requested water allocations.
Unexpectedly heavy winter rains then saved California, but not the Colorado River basin, where Lake Mead, the nation’s largest reservoir, remains 165 feet below its historic full level.
In May, the Western states that tap the Colorado River agreed to a reductions of up to 30% in water allocations. That’s a lot, and it’s not clear it is enough to save Lake Mead in the long run.
So Fallbrook and Rainbow are taking a risk. It’s a risk that was noted, albeit only briefly and obliquely, in the LAFCO proceedings.
“The superior reliability of SDCWA’s supply has benefitted FPUD and RMWD in the past … In switching from being wholesale customers of SDCWA to EMWD, FPUD and especially RMWD may face some challenges,” according to the official report for LAFCO.
Those “challenges” during a future drought could be a major reduction in water supply and higher prices at a time when the rest of San Diego County, thanks to the desalination plant, water recycling and the giant San Vicente Reservoir, has plenty of water.
Fallbrook and Rainbow say they don’t really benefit from this reliability, since their water systems are not directly connected. But water is a fungible resource. The two districts do have direct access to Colorado River water earmarked for San Diego County.
If the rest of San Diego County needs less Colorado water because of the investment in local supplies, then that water can be diverted to Fallbrook and Rainbow during a drought. And that’s exactly what happened during the most recent one. In any case, the Water Authority has plans for a physical connection, though it backed off amid the dispute.
There’s a whiff of national politics in all this. These are conservative communities where some may doubt climate change, and local business leaders have criticized desalination as a boondoggle. If you sincerely do not believe the climate is changing, then maybe you don’t see a risk in changing water suppliers.
In many ways this controversy is a bellwether for future wrangles over resources amid climate change. Do we stick with the old ways — in this case tapping our lakes and rivers — and hope for the best, or do we continue to invest in alternatives to protect our future?
It’s expensive to build desalination plants, recycling projects and new reservoirs, just like it’s expensive to upgrade the electrical grid and install car chargers. But a changing climate doesn’t ask for permission to impact our lives.
(Editor’s Note: Chris Jennewein is editor and publisher of Times of San Diego.)
San Diego’s biggest water seller will sue the boundary referees that allowed two of its buyers to leave its business territory.
After hours of deliberation in a closed meeting last week, the board of the San Diego County Water Authority voted to sue the Local Agency Formation Commission, or LAFCO. That’s because LAFCO’s board agreed to let Rainbow Municipal Water District and the Fallbrook Public Utilities District divorce from the Water Authority last month so they could buy cheaper water from Riverside County.
For years, farmers in North County have warned they are imperiled by the high rates they have to pay the San Diego County Water Authority. Concerns are particularly acute among avocado growers within the Rainbow Municipal Water District and Fallbrook Public Utility District, where about 600 growers produce about 10 percent of the state’s crop on 5,300 acres.
The Water News Network is San Diego County’s source for water news and information.
