Less Chiquita Water for San Juan Capistrano

When a natural disaster strikes, San Juan Capistrano won't draw as much water from a new emergency reservoir as it initially planned.

Instead, city officials intend to rely more on the local supply pumped daily from the water treatment plant at City Hall.

On Tuesday night, the City Council voted unanimously to slash the amount of water it owns in the—a $55-million, 244-million gallon water bed shared by six area water agencies—from 24.8 to 16.3 million gallons. The reduction will save the city $1.5 million, which it will spend primarily on emergency backup generators at the treatment plant and the wells that feed it.

The San Juan Capistrano plant is currently without any back-up power. In two recent citywide blackouts, at least one booster station lost power, said the .

The Upper Chiquita Reservoir is considered to be the first large-scale emergency potable water reservoir built in Orange County in decades. San Juan Capistrano bought into the project to supply residents with water if the treatment plant malfunctions, but Van Der Maaten said Tuesday that he's more concerned that the city's plant is without a back-up power supply.

Van Der Maaten said that purchasing the generators would be an investment in a "supply source," while a higher share at the Chiquita Reservoir is an investment in storage capacity.

If there were a disaster or a contamination, and back-up generators were installed, water could be supplied indefinitely to residents via the treatment plant. The 24.8 million gallons of storage at the Chiquita Reservoir, however, would only supply water for a up to 10 days before the city’s share would be depleted, Van Der Maaten.

in the water agency's capital improvement budget to cover the costs of both investments.

The decision to reduce San Juan Capistrano's share of the Chiquita Reservoir water will come at no penalty, said John Schatz, the manager of the Santa Margarita Water District, the agency that took the lead in designing the water bed.

Money was also getting tight for San Juan Capistrano as Santa Margarita began billing for Capistrano's portion of the construction costs, which came in over budget by $1 million. Interest payments were higher than city staffers said they anticipated.

To make the payments without reducing its share into the reservoir, the city would have had to appropriate money from a different budget.

Mayor Sam Allevato was absent from Tuesday's meeting.