Water crisis leads to ag user shutdowns

At a press conference held Tuesday, multiple North County water agencies, including Fallbrook Public Utility District and Rainbow Municipal Water District, said they have been left with no choice but to shut down agricultural water users if necessary to conserve the quickly dwindling supply of water until upgrade work on the Lake Skinner Filtration Plant expansion is completed on approximately February 15.

Two distinct areas of Greater Fallbrook are in especially critical situations.

“If you live in DeLuz or south of the San Luis Rey River in the Rainbow Municipal Water District, you must stop irrigating now,” said Keith Lewinger, General Manager of Fallbrook Public Utility District. “Although we have asked people to not irrigate, the usage is not down enough. People are using more water than we can deliver right now and the reservoirs are too low.” Lewinger explained that users classified as agricultural accounts are understood to be ‘interruptible,’ that being the stipulation for receiving a reduced rate.

Charley Wolk, owner of Bejoca Farm Management in Fallbrook and a member of the San Diego County Farm Bureau, says given the current weather conditions, the water shortage can be treacherous for local farmers.

“A lack of water during weather conditions like this can cause fruit to drop from avocado trees,” Wolk said. “The problem with that is it causes an influx of fruit into the market and as a result the rate drops significantly. This is not just a little bit of money; it’s a lot of money.” Wolk also voiced concern over lack of water for nursery crops, although Lewinger said in the FPUD district, agricultural users are limited to tree crops.

“If nursery water is interrupted, plants could die or be too stressed to go to market on time,” Wolk said.

The work to upgrade the Lake Skinner Filtration Plant began this past Sunday and is expected to take eleven days. Prior to the upgrade, the plant was able to treat 525 million gallons per water per day. After the work is complete, that number will increase to 110 million gallons. The When the project was planned, February was selected as the target month for the work based on the fact that it has historically been the lowest water usage month of the year.

“We’ve all planned for this shutdown and we expected it to be like it normally is in February – wet and cloudy,” Lewinger said. “We didn’t realize that this February we would have 80 degree weather, increased humidity and wind.”

Eddie Rigdon of Metropolitan Water District said, “We’ve been planning this shutdown since the year 2000. Currently we are doing our best to work with the contractor to try and shave down the time that the Skinner plant is down. The contractor is working 24 hours/7 days a week, so we are very optimistic.” The plant

“It’s not like it’s a harebrained idea or anything,” Wolk said. “Somebody just didn’t send the plan up to the good Lord. What we need to do is pray for the weather to change.”

While agricultural users are the primary concern, Lewinger said FPUD has sufficient water stored for residential use, but those customers are asked to conserve as well.

Residential users are asked to implement basic conservation measures such as only running full loads in their dishwashers, washing machines, etc.

“We need to ask our customers to take severe action now,” Lewinger emphasized.