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.”
Within the next few weeks, two water districts will be filing unprecedented applications to detach from the San Diego County Water Authority.
Instead, they intend to buy water directly from the Metropolitan Water District via the Eastern Municipal Water District in Riverside County, thereby saving both districts millions of dollars annually.
The Fallbrook Public Utility District and the Rainbow Municipal Water District say they are in a unique position to divorce themselves from the Water Authority because Metropolitan pipes run right past their geographic areas.
Two small water agencies are trying to divorce themselves from the San Diego County Water Authority and join a Riverside County water agency instead.
The San Diego County Water Authority isn’t willing to let them go so easily. Its board of directors last week approved a resolution to ask the obscure San Diego Local Agency Formation Commission “to require approval by voters across the Water Authority’s service area of any proposed ‘detachment’ by the Rainbow Municipal Water District and the Fallbrook Public Utility District from the Water Authority,” the Water Authority wrote in a press release.
The San Diego County Water Authority’s Board of Directors last week authorized actions to seek to ensure all San Diego County voters are heard on plans by the Rainbow and Fallbrook water agencies to leave the regional water wholesaler and instead join a Riverside County water agency.
The Board of Directors approved a resolution to ask the San Diego Local Agency Formation Commission – known as San Diego LAFCO – to require approval by voters across the Water Authority’s service area of any proposed “detachment” by the Rainbow Municipal Water District and the Fallbrook Public Utility District from the Water Authority. Detachment from the Water Authority has potential impacts for water agencies, fire districts and water ratepayers across San Diego County.
The Water News Network is San Diego County’s source for water news and information.
