FPUD moves forward with water project, maintains wildlife acreage

The Fallbrook Public Utility District (FPUD) is inching further toward developing its own water supply — and using local Santa Margarita River water to do it.

Environmental and feasibility studies for the river project are currently underway and have moved on to the next step: appraising the roughly 1,300 acres of undeveloped land the district owns off Sandia Creek Drive.

Neighbors of the property may encounter representatives of the US Bureau of Reclamation who are visiting the property to determine its value. FPUD would be given credit for that value as consideration toward its share of the cost of the project.

The raccoons and beavers that live in the area will be glad to hear it. So will the bobcats, coyotes, native Arroyo Chub fish and endangered Arroyo toads.

As the area is the last remaining corridor that links the Santa Ana Mountains to the Palomar Mountains where mountain lions and red tail hawks live, the area is home and traveling grounds for a wide variety of wildlife — wildlife the FPUD is intent on preserving.

“The FPUD property will stay open space under the preferred alternative,” said General Manager Keith Lewinger. “There will be no urban development associated with the Santa Margarita River project.”

Instead, the project is expected to provide cheaper and better-quality water for FPUD customers. The water will be higher quality than the water imported from the Colorado River because it will be treated with a state-of-the-art nano-filtration system.

The river could meet as much as half of FPUD’s future needs. That would make the district less reliant on expensive, imported water, the cost of which county water officials expect to double over the next decade or two.

Termed the “conjunctive-use project” with Camp Pendleton, the project would take surface water from the river in the winter when there is a surplus and then store it underground in a basin on Camp Pendleton for use in drier months. The project would provide 100 percent of Camp Pendleton’s water needs.

For more than 60 years, FPUD has had rights to the local water in the Santa Margarita River but years of litigation between FPUD and the federal government have prevented the district from using the river.

The studies, targeted for completion in December, are being done by the federal Bureau of Reclamation. The bureau has received federal funding grants in the amount of $700,000 for the project’s engineering, economic and environmental feasibility studies.

US Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Temecula) recently introduced a bill, HR 125, that would allow the federal government to give FPUD a low-interest loan to finance the Conjunctive Use Project with Camp Pendleton. The new bill contains the same language as the earlier bill Issa introduced, HR 4389. That bill was passed unanimously by each member of the House of Representatives but expired before the Senate reviewed it.