The Santa Clarita Valley family of water suppliers is reporting an outstanding public response last week to the water suppliers’ request for a temporary one-week shutdown of irrigation to accommodate infrastructure repairs that briefly made water from Castaic Lake unavailable for public use.
“It was an excellent response,” said Matt Stone, general manager of the Castaic Lake Water Agency, the SCV’s wholesaler of imported water from the State Water Project and other sources. “All of the water suppliers are reporting high levels of cooperation from the public, including individual homeowners, businesses and large institutional water users. Water demand was down by an average of more than 20 percent from the prior week. I know all of the water purveyors really appreciate the level of response.”
The Family of Water Suppliers, which consists of CLWA and all four local retailers, requested that water users conserve as much as possible and refrain from irrigation April 4-11. Castaic Lake water was temporarily unavailable due to repairs and maintenance on infrastructure, including the state Department of Water Resources’ Castaic Outlet Tower and the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California’s Foothill Feeder.
Steve Cole, general manager of the Newhall County Water District, said, “The public’s cooperation during this period helped all of the suppliers maintain a buffer of stored water, just in case a local emergency arose,” Cole said. “It also provided assurances that water would be available if the repairs and maintenance were to take a little longer than expected.”
During the shutdown, the SCV relied upon local groundwater and treated imported water stored in locations other than Castaic Lake.
“As it happened, the repairs were all completed either on time or ahead of schedule,” said Keith Abercrombie, general manager of CLWA’s Santa Clarita Water Division. “It is, of course, always better to be safe than sorry,” Abercrombie said. “Now that we’ve successfully accommodated the repairs, customers of all SCV water suppliers can resume outdoor irrigation – but we all have to remember that the water use restrictions mandated by the state are still in place, including watering schedules enacted by your local purveyor.”
Adam Ariki, assistant deputy director for Los Angeles County Waterworks, said the results of the temporary shutdown were encouraging, and while it’s OK to resume irrigation now that the repairs are complete, customers should still strive to conserve, especially when it comes to outdoor water use.
“In the far northern part of the state, rainfall is around average – and up significantly compared to last year,” Ariki said. “However, here in Southern California we are still headed toward our fifth consecutive year of below-average precipitation, despite the much-discussed El Niño condition.”
Ken Petersen, general manager of Valencia Water Company, said VWC customers did very well in responding to the call for extraordinary conservation.
He added there has been speculation that the State Water Board’s emergency drought order imposing water use restrictions across California may be eased a bit this year, but that has not happened yet.
“We know customers sometimes wonder why they are still being asked to conserve water when they hear reports of an improved snowpack and increased precipitation up north, but the drought and its impacts are long-term issues,” Petersen said. “So, in the meantime, we simply want to thank all SCV water customers for their cooperation and conservation, not only last week, but also on an ongoing basis.”
Information on each agency’s water conservation efforts, along with water-saving tips, can be found online at:
Castaic Lake Water Agency: www.clwa.org
Newhall County Water District: www.ncwd.org
Santa Clarita Water Division: www.santaclaritawater.com
Valencia Water Company: www.valenciawater.com
L.A. County Waterworks District #36: www.lacwaterworks.org
About the SCV Family of Water Suppliers:
The Santa Clarita Valley Family of Water Suppliers consists of the Castaic Lake Water Agency, Newhall County Water District, Los Angeles County Waterworks District No. 36, Santa Clarita Water Division, and the Valencia Water Company. Together with the Suppliers, the City of Santa Clarita and Los Angeles County are members of the Santa Clarita Water Committee and are all committed to reducing water use in the valley in order to create a more sustainable environment for the future.
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