Drought Shuts Water Recovery Plant

By Rita Robinson | LB Indy

South Coast Water District shut down its groundwater recovery plant in Dana Point Monday because there’s little to no water coming from the source, the San Juan Groundwater Basin, district officials announced Tuesday.

The Dana Point facility produced 15 percent of the district’s drinkable water, or 400 million gallons a year, from a single well used by households and businesses in South Laguna, Dana Point and part of San Clemente.

SCWD is permitted to draw up to 424 million gallons of water each year from the San Juan Basin by the state Water Resources Control Board. To replace the water, SCWD is purchasing more imported water from the Metropolitan Water District, which already supplies 75 percent of SCWD’s drinking water, said water district spokeswoman Linda Homscheid. “And these supplies are decreasing and uncertain,” she said.

Due to the state’s drought, MWD is drawing little water from northern California and is more reliant on supplies from the Colorado River, Homscheid said. Neighboring drought-affected states also rely on the river.

Temporarily closing the Dana Point facility for up to 60 days may give the San Juan Basin a chance to refill, the district predicts.

But restoration of water levels depends on seasonal rainfall, an uncertain assumption, says an official at the San Juan Basin Authority.

“We’re in the third year of a drought.” said Dan Ferons, general manager of the Santa Margarita Water District and administrator for the San Juan Basin. “We don’t know if it’s the third year of the drought or the third year of a 10-year drought. The point we’re trying to make as an industry is that water-use efficiency should be a lifestyle not just a reaction to the drought.”

Think of it as a cultural change, Ferons suggested. “If your grass is never walked on except by the guy who’s mowing it, you may want to think about putting something else in there,” he said.

By closing down the groundwater facility, SCWD is turning off the one well it operates in the San Juan Basin. The city of San Juan Capistrano is shutting down its two wells. “We’re keeping an eye on what happens with those wells being off,” said Ferons. “It might raise the water levels.”

Because people are still watering their lawns and their landscaping, Ferons said, “there’s still groundwater being contributed to the basin; we don’t expect to fully recover until we get rain but we do expect to see some recovery with them shutting off the wells.” Water levels are being monitored weekly.

“It’s a new era of operations because we’ve never had this kind of extended drought before,” he stated.

The San Juan Basin is predominantly fed by the San Juan Creek as well as a series of under- and above-ground rivers and streams, which normally carry rainfall running off the Santa Ana Mountains.

MWD draws its water from the Colorado River and snowmelt in the Sierra Nevada Mountains through rivers and basins. Those sources are also seeing low water levels due to lack of rainfall.

Residents of California are experiencing the driest years on record. In January, Governor Brown declared a statewide drought emergency and asked Californians to reduce water usage by 20 percent.

Ferons suggests that people stop washing down sidewalks and driveways; sweep them instead. Other water officials suggest watering lawns less, taking shorter showers and running only full loads of laundry. “Do all those kinds of smart things as a normal habit,” he said.

Instead of grass, water-use experts suggest drought-tolerant plants and watering landscaping with water captured from the bath or sink. Even in Palm Springs, golf course owners are heeding the message. “The fairways and the golfcourses are getting a little narrower and they’re using recycled water,” Ferons said. “But there’s more we can do.”

In south county, residents have consistently cut reduced water use, consuming less today than 10 years ago, despite population growth, he said.

Earlier this year, SCWD tracked down 1,000 customers whose meters were registering 24 hours of water usage, a sure sign of a leak. Responding to a district letter offering free help to determine the cause, more than 750 leaks, mostly leaking toilets that can waste 30 gallons or more a day, were repaired. An estimated 190 million gallons of water was collectively saved, equal to water use by 1,800 average households for a year, said General Manager Andy Brunhart. “Our customers care and will do the right thing, if they know about it,” he said.

Weather experts are saying that the current mild El Nino conditions, as verified by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, will likely produce rain this winter but nothing above average is expected.

SCWD is also pursuing ocean desalination as a source for local drinking water. The district also recently opened the Aliso Creek Water Reclamation Facility to capture runoff and expand its supply of recycled water available for landscape irrigation, which constitutes 10 percent of the district’s water supply.