Stage three water rationing in Avalon is expected to occur as early as August and as late as October of this year, according to Jeff Lawrence, who’s Southern California Edison’s project manager on the Island.
Stage three rationing takes effect on the Island when the water level in the Middle Ranch reservoir hits the 200-acre-foot mark.
As of Feb 19, the water level at the Thompson reservoir has dropped 2 acre feet and currently sits at a level of 273 acre feet, according to Lawrence.
Stage three water rationing in Avalon is expected to occur as early as August and as late as October of this year, according to Jeff Lawrence, who’s Southern California Edison’s project manager on the Island.
Stage three rationing takes effect on the Island when the water level in the Middle Ranch reservoir hits the 200-acre-foot mark.
As of Feb 19, the water level at the Thompson reservoir has dropped 2 acre feet and currently sits at a level of 273 acre feet, according to Lawrence.
“Unfortunately we haven’t seen the rainfall we’ve all been hoping for but we have been able to maintain the water in the reservoir at a fairly consistent level,” said Lawrence.
On March 17, Lawrence delivered an update at Avalon’s City Council meeting on stage two water rationing results and projections for stage three rationing for the Island.
At the meeting, the Council expressed a bit of concern over the projected timeline for the third stage of rationing.
“Something just doesn’t make sense to me,” said Councilmember Cinde MacGugan-Cassidy. “At a certain point, somewhere in June, the desalination plant is unable to produce 100 percent of the needs of water when we have our guests arriving. If we’re then met with the need of 600,000 gallons a day in our busiest months it seems that the water would be dropping quicker.”
Lawrence responded that Edison has been averaging the forecast based on historical evidence.
“Going into stage two we saw roughly about 20 acre feet drops each month during the tourism season. You’re going to see the reservoir level drop during the April through June timeframe but we have 70 acre feet before we hit that 200 foot level. It shouldn’t hit 200 until August,” said Lawrence.
Councilmember Joe Sampson asked if Edison is developing any kind of contingency plan for when stage three is implemented. Lawrence said that Edison currently has five alternatives being considered but they are not ready to go public with them as the vendor they hired isn’t done with the cost analysis study.
“We do know alternatives are being investigated for operational feasibility and fiscal impacts. I’m hopeful within the next month to have an update on that,” said Lawrence.
Sampson also asked about a projection for when stage four rationing might occur but Lawrence said that at this time there would be too many variables to give a clear picture of that.
However, the picture for the results of stage two showed a continuing trend of consistent rationing.
The recent results show that water usage on the Island has dropped about 30 percent in February of this year.
That is in comparison to February of 2014 water usage, which was about 6-and-a-half acre feet more than this year.
That reduction in water consumption for February 2015 comes at a time when visitor counts have increased by over 5,000 for the month.
The consistent reduction in water usage has been in part due to the diligence of Avalon citizens, which is shown through the dwindling number of water violations per month.
For February, water use violations have been relatively flat at 84, said Lawrence. In fact, the number of water violations has stayed at 84 since the beginning of this year.
In terms of when stage two rationing began the year of 2012-2013, water usage is down by 73 acre feet a year. In the 2012 baseline year, 216 acre feet of water was used and this last year saw only 143 acre feet in water usage.
