The Big Break : Water: A ruptured pipeline that left thousands of residents parched teaches a harsh lesson about the shortcomings of the county’s water system.

The burst aqueduct in Scripps Ranch forces San Diego County to face a discomforting truth: Some people could be without water within hours while their neighbors luxuriate in their showers, unable to pipe any surplus to the dry districts.

The fractured water line brought nearly 200,000 residents of the Otay and Padre Dam municipal water districts to their knees, forcing them to let their yards wilt and their toilets go unflushed for hours. The two districts had only three days’ supply of backup water stored in various reservoirs.

But the Helix Water District, with 225,000 residents, was able to tap its reserves in Lake Jennings and share with Otay and Padre Dam.

The broken pipeline also cut off the flow of water to two other districts--but not a peep of concern was heard from them. The 150,000-resident Sweetwater Authority that serves National City, western Chula Vista and Bonita simply turned to its massive reservoir. The 30,000-resident Ramona district tapped into Lake Poway.

Other districts in the county, however, are far more vulnerable.

Oceanside would be paralyzed within hours if it lost its flow of imported water from Northern California and the Colorado River.

In hand-to-mouth Oceanside, there is only a day’s worth of water in storage--and that’s when the tanks are filled by early morning. By nightfall, they’re virtually drained and in need of nightly recharging. If an earthquake struck along the San Andreas fault, and all five pipelines that deliver imported water into San Diego County were fractured, Oceanside’s130,000 residents would be without water within days.

“This is the anxiety I live with,” said Mike McGrath, the city’s water operations manager.

Just a few miles east, in the Pauma Valley, the situation differs dramatically. Even if the aqueducts broke, the local Yuima Municipal Water District--the county’s smallest, with just 1,800 residents--could pull 15 times more water out of wells than is needed to serve its domestic customers.

“No problem,” said Susan Collins, the district’s general manager.

Even the city of San Diego is schizophrenic in terms of its water storage. Residents living south of Clairemont Mesa Boulevard have a six-month or longer supply of water at their disposal, thanks to the seven city water reservoirs that serve the central and southern parts of the city. By the time the water might run dry, authorities say, any catastrophic pipeline break upstate could be fixed.

But residents in the northern parts of San Diego--living in Scripps Ranch, Rancho Bernardo, Rancho Penasquitos and Del Mar Heights, for instance--have only two to four weeks’ worth of backup water, stored at the city’s Miramar Reservoir, the only one serving the sprawling region.

“If an earthquake occurs in Riverside County or farther north, and all the aqueducts are cut, we’d be sitting here with what’s left in our storage system,” said Milan Mills, director of water utilities for the city of San Diego. “And while we have a good system of reservoirs, they’re basically available only to the areas south of Clairemont Mesa Boulevard. Right now, we’ve got six months’ supply, and that could go to a year if people conserved.”

But with only one reservoir serving the northern part of the city, and the technical difficulty of pumping water uphill from the southern reservoirs, the city’s northern residents face a scarier situation, he warned.

Why did the region get slighted?

It reflects the county’s growth patterns and the difficulty of striking a balance with environmental constraints, officials say.

Plans for the first pipeline to bring water into San Diego County from the north were instigated by the Navy, which, at the outbreak of World War II, worried that the town wouldn’t have enough water to sustain its locally based wartime forces. The existing reservoirs--established by developers wanting to build new communities--couldn’t be counted on since they rose and fell with the whims of nature’s cloudbursts, the Navy reasoned.

The San Diego County Water Authority was established in 1944 to continue the pipeline work. Through the years, five pipelines have been installed, and a sixth is being designed to quench the region’s thirst as well as meet industrial and agricultural needs.

Indeed, 70% of this desert county’s water is imported from the Colorado River, and another 26% is gravity-fed from Northern California. The water is purchased from the Metropolitan Water District, the massive Southern California wholesale agency that sells water to smaller agencies such as the San Diego County Water Authority, a middleman that in turn sells the water to local districts. Less than 5% of the county’s water needs are met by local rainwater runoff and ground water.

Each day, local water managers tell the County Water Authority how much water they need that day to serve their customers, and the water authority passes the order on to the MWD. Valves are adjusted at key points in Riverside and San Bernardino counties, and the water free-flows southward--traveling at speeds of up to 10 feet per second because of subtle drops in elevation, in pipes so huge that you can walk through them, finally dead-ending at the Otay Lake Reservoir just north of the Mexican border.

It is up to the local water districts to store their own backup supplies, in case that steady flow is abruptly cut off. And some districts are better prepared for that event than others.

In 1985, the city of San Diego proposed building a huge reservoir in the Pamo Valley near Ramona. The $86-million project would hold 130,000 acre-feet of stored, imported water to be held in reserve. (An acre-foot is the amount of water it takes to cover an acre with water one foot deep.)

In contrast, all of the county’s existing 22 reservoirs have a combined capacity of about 570,000 acre-feet of water, although, countywide, they now are about 40% full and, by design, are never filled to the top. By comparison, the county buys about 650,000 acre-feet of imported water annually--and could get by with about half that if outdoor watering were banned in a time of crisis.

But the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said the Pamo Reservoir project would cause irreparable harm to the 1,800-acre wooded valley--home to an endangered songbird--and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers blocked the project.

“We very graciously didn’t interfere with the least Bell’s vireo, but one of these days we will look like Saudia Arabia,” said Jim Tolley, general manager of the Santa Fe Irrigation District.

Now the frustrated County Water Authority and its member agencies are scrambling for other ways to store massive amounts of water and reclaim once-used water.

If necessity is the mother of invention, the potential of a dry mouth can generate creative juices of its own.

Consider the Vallecitos County Water District, which serves San Marcos--an agency that now has a three-day backlog of stored, imported water in its various reservoirs.

San Marcos businessman Jim Eubanks, owner of the Old California restaurant row and the nephew of an old water dowser, took it upon himself to follow a hunch--and successfully uncovered through bedrock cracks an underground pool of water believed capable of providing a million gallons of water daily. He sunk the well 1,500 feet deep, in a vacant lot behind his San Marcos Boulevard food complex.

The Vallecitos district is now negotiating a deal with him, paying him back the $75,000 he risked, to buy the rights to that water--enough to meet 10% of the district’s daily demand.

“We don’t know how long that well could be sustained, or if the quality of the water could be maintained, or whether we’ll end up with seawater intrusion, but we’ll risk enough money to prove him out,” said Bill Rucker, general manager of the district. District directors already have allocated $500,000 to pursue the water.

To the north, the Fallbrook Public Utilities District is looking underground for another water source--reclaimed water that is produced by two water districts in the Rancho California area of Riverside County.

Fallbrook, which now stores three weeks’ worth of imported water in a large reservoir, struck a pact with the upstream agencies in which they’ll dump their treated waste water into the ground--so Fallbrook can then tap it downstream, as it follows beneath the Santa Margarita River.

The Fallbrook agency will chlorinate the hand-me-down water and blend it with the imported water--and, presumably, never have to face a water shortage, General Manager Gordon Tinker said.

Escondido residents have the assurance that if an emergency struck, their Lake Dixon, which is filled with imported water, and Lake Henshaw, which holds local rainwater collected near Warner Springs and gravity-fed by canal to Escondido, would provide two months or more of water.

The only grief, noted city utilities manager George Lohnes, would be the breakage of the fishing boat docks at Lake Dixon as the water level dropped.

Two water districts that serve Rancho Santa Fe and the neighboring coastal communities can tap into Lake Hodges--and do, for 50% of their daily water needs, when there’s enough water in it from rain runoff. But Hodges, which can hold 34,000 acre-feet of water, is now down to 7,000 acre-feet because of the drought, and the partner Santa Fe Irrigation and San Dieguito water districts are now buying 90% of their daily water from the water authority.

If the aqueducts broke, the districts would turn to Hodges--but would be able to pump out and treat only enough water to meet domestic needs. Citrus and avocado groves, and lush lawns, would suffer.

And if Hodges were totally dry--as may happen in a year or two--and the aqueducts broke? “We’d be up a creek,” Tolley said. “A dry creek.”

So why not borrow water from a neighbor?

The problem, officials say, is that while the county on paper has enough water in storage to get by for many months if the San Andreas fault were to wreck the aqueducts, not all districts have access to those reservoirs.

“If we had the existing storage capacities where we wanted them now, we would manage in an emergency,” said Lester Snow, general manager of the County Water Authority. “But most of them were built before World War II, when all of the county’s population was in the southern third of the county. Now they’re not in the right place.”

For that reason, the CWA urges each local water agency to be able to survive for 10 days without aqueduct water, either by establishing its own reservoirs or through interconnections with a neighboring agency that can supply the backup. That’s what saved the Sweetwater and Ramona water districts 10 days ago, allowing them to continue business as usual even while two other districts enforced a Stage 4 water emergency with mandatory rationing.

But pipelines don’t always cleanly mesh between water agencies and--since this is a county where the gravity feeds water from north to south--there aren’t sufficient and properly placed pumps to push the water back up to the more northern communities.

Escondido’s two lakes, for instance, cannot bail out Rancho Santa Fe; San Diego city’s reservoirs won’t wet the taps in Oceanside.

The Olivenhain Municipal Water District says it would like to help, by building a mammoth reservoir atop Mt. Israel, just north of Lake Hodges. The reservoir would be constructed in a deep, ridge-top canyon and be able to hold 24,000 acre-feet of water--two-thirds the amount Hodges holds when it’s brimming to its dam.

The reservoir is now being planned, and should be operational within five years. It would be filled with imported water during winter months--when the MWD offers price breaks--and drawn down during the summer.

“We only need between 6,000 and 10,000 acre-feet for our own needs,” said Dave McCollom, general manager of the district. “We’d like other agencies to chip in, and share it with us.” The County Water Authority is considering doing just that.

Projects like that still would require technical cooperation among neighboring water districts. But districts have developed their own water systems--based on their own local water pressures and delivery needs, and they don’t necessarily mix and match with a neighboring system.

“Most agencies have limited interconnections with neighboring agencies--but they’re not as many as you might think,” Snow said. “That’s because the Metropolitan Water District and the CWA have been so reliable. After all, there’s never been a time in 46 years where an agency has gone without water.”

These are the water districts serving San Diego County, the source of their supplies, the amount they are capable of storing and how long that water would last under average conditions in the event they lost access to water that the San Diego County Water Authority (CWA) obtains via five Metropolitan Water District aqueducts. After each water supplier’s name, the number in parentheses refers to the map.

Officials note that in the event of emergency, the number of days in backup storage can be doubled or more by banning outdoor watering.

Of the five aqueducts, one provides treated, ready-to-drink water. The other four supply raw water which must at least be chlorinated by the local agency.

One million gallons equals about 3 acre-feet--the amount of water that would cover an acre to a depth of three feet, or enough water to serve six families for about a year.

CARLSBAD MUNICIPAL WATER DISTRICT (7)

Fourteen-day supply.

Has 230 million gallons of treated water in storage, purchased exclusively from the CWA. Most is stored in the Maerkle Reservoir.

DEL MAR (15)

Three-day supply.

Fills its 4-million-gallon reservoirs with water purchased from the city of San Diego.

ESCONDIDO (9)

Two-day supply in operational storage tanks; 80 days if Lake Dixon and Lake Wohlford needed to be tapped.

City buys raw water daily from the CWA for daily demand, and replenishes Lake Dixon--the city’s primary back-up reservoir--as necessary. Additionally, 25% of the city’s water needs are met through the Lake Henshaw basin rainwater runoff, which is stored at Lake Wohlford. The two lakes have about 9,500 acre-feet of water.

FALLBROOK PUBLIC UTILITIES DISTRICT (1)

Three-week supply.

District maintains Red Mountain Reservoir, filled with 1,225 acre-feet of treated CWA water. The district also has an agreement with two Riverside County water agencies so their treated waste water can replenish the Santa Margarita River water table, to be tapped locally as needed.

HELIX WATER DISTRICT (19) (La Mesa, Lemon Grove, Spring Valley and parts of El Cajon)

Ninety- to 120-day supply.

The district taps Lake Jennings, a 9,870-acre-foot reservoir filled with raw, stockpiled CWA water that is then treated by the district as needed. In wet years, the district also gets natural runoff water that feeds into its Cuyamaca Reservoir--but it has been dry for the past two years.

OCEANSIDE (5)

One-day supply.

City relies exclusively on CWA water to fill 12 tanks daily with 50 million gallons of water. By nightfall, they are 75% drained and recharged overnight for the next day. No backup emergency storage.

OLIVENHAIN MUNICIPAL WATER DISTRICT (13)

Seven-day supply.

The district relies exclusively on imported water, which it stores in tanks that can hold 70 million gallons, or 210 acre-feet. The district is also preparing to develop a 24,000-acre-foot Mt. Israel reservoir which, when completed in about five years, would increase by 100 fold its water supply. The district plans to sell interests in it to other districts, including the possibility of the CWA itself.

OTAY WATER DISTRICT (22) (Rancho San Diego, Jamul, parts of El Cajon, eastern Chula Vista and Otay Mesa)

Three-day supply.

The district can store 130 million gallons of treated water purchased from the CWA and--as happened last week--can buy emergency water from the neighboring Helix Water District and, to a lesser extent, San Diego, to meet 50% of the daily normal demand.

PADRE DAM MUNICIPAL WATER DISTRICT (17) (Santee, Alpine, Lakeside and parts of El Cajon)

Three-day supply.

The district normally buys two-thirds of the treated water needed to fill its 89 million gallons of storage capacity from the CWA and one-third from neighboring Helix. Last week, it bought all its water--enough to meet half its daily demand--from Helix after the CWA line broke.

POWAY (16)

Three-month supply.

The city buys raw water from the CWA and stores it in Lake Poway before it is treated. The lake holds 3,500 acre-feet.

RAINBOW MUNICIPAL WATER DISTRICT (2)

Seven-day supply--but can be stretched to six-month supply if agricultural uses are banned, and water is restricted to domestic use.

The district buys a blend of raw and untreated water from the CWA, enough to fill tanks with a combined capacity of 450 million gallons. Agricultural uses now consume 85% of the district’s water.

RAMONA MUNICIPAL WATER DISTRICT (11)

Three-day supply.

The district buys treated CWA water to fill its 25 million-gallon storage reservoirs. Additionally, the district is filling its new Lake Ramona with untreated CWA water for agricultural use, but which could be treated in an emergency for another 6 months’ of drinking water. Finally, the district can draw on untreated water from the naturally filled, and now virtually empty, Sutherland Reservoir.

RINCON DEL DIABLO MUNICIPAL WATER DISTRICT (10) (Unincorporated county adjoining Escondido)

Three-day supply.

District exclusively buys raw CWA water, and stores 17 million gallons in seven tanks.

SAN DIEGO (18)

South of Clairemont Mesa Boulevard: Six-month supply, but fluctuates.

The city buys CWA water for daily demand, and stores extra CWA water at the San Vicente and El Capitan reservoirs. Currently there is s six-month supply of water between them and the Sutherland, Lake Murray, Barrett, Morena and Otay Lake reservoirs, which are naturally fed.

North of Clairemont Mesa Boulevard: Two-week supply.

The city relies exclusively on imported CWA water to fill its Miramar Reservoir, which has a two-week supply for the North City neighborhoods of Mira Mesa, Rancho Penasquitos, Carmel Mountain Ranch, Rancho Bernardo, Del Mar Heights.

SANTA FE IRRIGATION DISTRICT (14) (Rancho Santa Fe, Solana Beach, part of Fairbanks Ranch) and SAN DIEGUITO WATER DISTRICT (12) (Leucadia, Encinitas, Cardiff)

Two and a half-day supply.

In partnership, they buy enough water directly from CWA to meet daily demand, with a half-day storage. Districts have an additional two-day storage of untreated water at the jointly owned San Dieguito Lake, which can hold 300 acre-feet. In an emergency, they can draw from Lake Hodges--but it can only be treated quickly enough to meet domestic, indoor needs.

SWEETWATER AUTHORITY (20 & 21) (National City, western Chula Vista, Bonita)

A day and a half of treated water supply and 10 months of raw water supply.

The district owns the 27,700-acre-foot Sweetwater Reservoir, which is down to 9,000 acre-feet. The water can be treated quickly enough to essentially meet the district’s daily demand. Additionally, the district has 10,000-acre-feet of water in the Loveland Reservoir, which is held in storage to feed the Sweetwater Reservoir.

VALLECITOS COUNTY WATER DISTRICT (8) (San Marcos)

Three-day supply.

The district buys mostly filtered water from the CWA and stores 105 acre-feet, or 35 million gallons of water, in 14 tanks and its open-air North Twin Oaks Reservoir. The district currently is negotiating with a local businessman to buy 10% of the district’s daily water demand from his private well.

VALLEY CENTER MUNICIPAL WATER DISTRICT (3)

One-day storage--but could be extended to 10 days of domestic use if agricultural uses are prohibited.

The district stores 100 million gallons of both treated and raw CWA water in 37 different storage tanks. An additional 520 million gallons of poor-quality water is stored in Lake Turner and would be available in an emergency.

VISTA IRRIGATION DISTRICT (6)

Seven-day supply.

The district prefers to take water from its Lake Henshaw reservoir, which is naturally fed, but because the lake--which has a capacity of 53,000 acre-feet--is now down to 2,400 acre-feet, the district currently buys about 80% of its water from the CWA. The district stores 43.7 million gallons of water in 14 tanks.

YUIMA MUNICIPAL WATER DISTRICT (4) (Pauma Valley)

One-day supply in tanks--but with ready access to well water.

This agricultural-based district buys half its water from the CWA and produces the other half--another 2,000-acre-feet a year--itself through wells. Since domestic use demands only 120 acre-feet of water a year, the domestic supply is ensured indefinitely in an emergency.