Water Districts Seek Exemption on Blackouts

When brush fires flare this summer, Casitas Municipal Water District officials hope they will be able to supply firefighters in the Ojai Valley with all the water they need without worrying about power outages.

District officials recently asked the state Public Utilities Commission for an exemption from rolling blackouts at the height of the summer season, when energy use is expected to skyrocket. Electric water pumps would be rendered useless in a blackout.

The commission’s return letter said only that it would consider Casitas’ request, but provided no firm answer.

“We knew the PUC was granting exemptions for fire departments, and we felt if you didn’t have water for firefighters to fight fires, those exemptions were meaningless,” said John Johnson, general manager of the 55,000-customer district. “We never got a letter saying ‘no’ but we heard the general statement that the PUC is not granting exemptions to water districts.”

Not being exempt means taking an unnecessary risk, Johnson said.

“You will get no fire flow if the pumps are off,” he said. “We have some backup generators, but the pumps are way too big for generators on everything.”

The Calleguas Municipal Water District, which supplies 500,000 residents throughout the county, also filed a request for an exemption. Officials told the commission that outages at peak hours could cause water surges, ruptured pipes and even damaged roadways.

“We were denied right away,” said Donald Kendall, general manager of the district. “They said it was physically impossible to isolate the water district like that.”

Power failures in the past have caused major water surges that have burst pipes and broken apart streets, Kendall said. An outage increases pressure on the district’s water main because purveyors cannot pump water out.

“Our biggest concern is that we’ll be pumping away and then they will shut down,” he said. “If that happens it will send a pressure surge through the water line. Pressure surges can blow up pipes.”

That is what happened in 1997 when a 66-inch water main running under Madera Road in Simi Valley burst, blowing apart a huge chunk of the street and spewing about 8 million gallons of water into the surrounding neighborhood.

Meanwhile, officials with the United Water Conservation District said they never requested an exemption because they thought it would be denied.

“If we have to go more than six hours without power, I don’t know what we’ll do,” said Dana Wisehart, general manager.

Wisehart said United, which pumps water for 300,000 residents, has backup plans and gas generators to use in a pinch. During a blackout, she said, there would be no pressure in the pipeline and none in the fire hydrant.

“We have a backup system,” she said, “but it would be cheaper and easier if we were exempt.”

A PUC spokeswoman said there had been no firm decision on the fate of water districts.

Sheryl Inouye, an information officer with the PUC, said the commission has asked all agencies seeking exemptions to file applications for consideration by the five-member panel.

The commission has crafted a list of those exempt from outages. Hospitals, police and fire departments, commercial airports, some military bases such as those at Point Mugu and Port Hueneme, 911 dispatch centers, jails and anything vital to national security are exempt.

Though water districts and treatment facilities are considered essential, they are not automatically exempt. If they suffer a serious problem during a blackout, officials can call an 800 number to restore power.

“There is really not a lot of wiggle room,” said Nancy Williams, spokeswoman for Southern California Edison. “The PUC develops the criteria and we have to implement it. Keep in mind that [the outages] are only for a one-hour duration, so the PUC is thinking what are the odds that something draconian will happen.”

Local agriculture is also bracing for impending blackouts, though there has been no effort to ask for exemptions yet.

“It will be a tremendous cost factor,” said Rob Roy, president of the Ventura County Agricultural Assn. “Processors of avocados and onions are having to resort to buying expensive generator equipment costing one-quarter to a half-million dollars.”

His group of more than 100 growers and shippers of agricultural commodities is backing legislation that would, among other things, fund the purchase and development of energy-efficient farming machinery.