SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO : District to Vote on Water-Rate Proposal

Faced with a $46,000 fine for exceeding its allocation of water in February, board members of the Capistrano Valley Water District tonight will vote on a new water-rate structure aimed at penalizing residents who use excessive amounts of water.

The district, which serves about 8,000 residential customers in San Juan Capistrano and a small part of Dana Point, has proposed rate hikes for all residential customers who do not decrease their water usage by 20%. Under the proposal, those who do not cut back will be charged a rate that increases as their water use increases, district spokesman Don Metzger said.

District officials are attempting to avoid a repeat of the excessive water use in February, when customers overshot the district’s monthly allocation of 234.9 acre-feet of water and used 396.8 acre-feet, said Ray Auerbach, district general manager.

“We are now checking our water usage daily, which we did not do last month,” Auerbach said. “Last month was very dry, until the last day or so.”

Although he has not yet heard from the Municipal Water District of Orange County, Auerbach said the district will be hit with an estimated $46,000 surcharge for last month’s water demands.

At a surcharge of $394 for every acre-foot used over the allotment, the district could be hit with nearly $63,000 in penalties, but Auerbach said the district is likely to be credited for some of the excess use because one of the wells the district uses to pump ground water broke down.

The broken pump will allow the district to claim a 43.5-acre-foot credit, reducing the monthly fine, he said. Still, the $46,000 in fines will have to be paid out of the $500,000 working capital budget and could mean higher rates to residential customers in the future, Auerbach said.

Under the district staff’s proposal, new residential rates will be based on what a survey showed to be the average water usage of a residential customer, 1,800 cubic feet a month, rather than using figures from 1990 as many other districts have done.

“Our district felt that would penalize those who saved last year,” Metzger said. “If someone was wasting water last year, they could cut back with no problem. We found there was just too much variation from one house to the next.”

As proposed, residents who decrease water use to 1,400 cubic feet a month--which represents a 20% decrease--will continue to be charged 83 cents for each 100 cubic feet of water, Metzger said.

A two-tier system of fines would be established under the proposal for residential consumers who use excessive amounts of water. The first tier would apply to consumers who use 1,400 to 2,800 cubic feet of water a month, and the second tier would penalize those using more than 2,800 cubic feet a month.

The rate jumps 25% for each tier, or from 83 cents to $1.04 per 100 cubic feet for those falling between 1,400 to 2,800 cubic feet a month, and to $1.30 for anyone using over 2,800 cubic feet a month.