Now you can worry about the water too

This story appeared in the Antelope Valley Press March 4, 2001.

By BRENDA ZAHN
Valley Press Staff Writer

PALMDALE - This summer, a young boy will set up a makeshift lemonade stand in his front yard with a sign reading, "Lemonade - 25¢," taped to the front.

Such youthful entrepreneurship signals that the hot, happy months of summer have arrived.

The boy will then head to the kitchen to get the packet of yellow crystals that he'll mix with a container of water to create the drink that will earn him a quarter a glass. Imagine his distress if that water doesn't come out.

With lemonade stands, swimming parties and other water-related summer activities in mind, water districts are taking steps to ensure they have enough power to run their operations once the weather warms up and the demand peaks for water and energy.

The state of California is immersed in a power crisis that caused outages in Northern California in December and has Gov. Gray Davis scrambling to find a solution to skyrocketing energy costs.

Since water districts depend on electricity to power their operations, many are looking to gain independence from struggling electric utilities.

The Palmdale Water District, for instance, has taken steps to protect its water operations from electrical outages, said Dennis LaMoreaux, the district's general manager.

"We're going to try to focus on being prepared for the summer, but we want to look at a more long-term picture also," LaMoreaux said.

The district is obtaining natural gas generators "for what we consider some of our critical sites," he said, and that will allow them to generate some of their own power.

Officials are also reinstating an old hydro-generator at Palmdale Lake and gathering information about wind directions and speeds with the goal of possibly establishing a wind-energy system.

The district may also apply for California Energy Commission grants that fund generation projects, LaMoreaux said. He added that the current plans shouldn't raise customers' water bills.

"I don't foresee the work we're doing to try to increase our reliability increasing our rates," he said.

The Quartz Hill Water District has also considered the possible impacts of sustained energy problems in the state come summer, said General Manager Jack Baxter.

"It gives us some alarm because we are reliant on our power supply from Edison Co. to operate our wells," Baxter said. "We are in the process right now of examining the possibility of obtaining backup power systems so we could survive without Edison Co. power."

The district has a "pretty good reserve" of water in its storage tanks. That could sustain it for awhile in the event of a power blackout, he said.

"We can endure brief outages without having to look around for alternative power sources, simply because we have water in storage," Baxter said.

The district's board has authorized staff to decide what power-generating equipment they need and to take steps to get that equipment. It could be a costly, but necessary, proposition, Baxter said.

"The changes to our existing equipment, plus the purchase of the generating equipment itself, would be very costly, on the order of $400,000 or $500,000," he said.

As for Los Angeles County Waterworks, which supplies water to various parts of the Antelope Valley, officials say generators will keep their power going in the event of a brief power outage.

"Things are not just going to shut down," said Ken Pellman, a spokesman for Los Angeles County Waterworks.

"Likely, if there's a sustained loss of power, there will be a drop in pressure in some places, but there will still be water," he said.

He said the county has one day's worth of water saved.

The county has no plans for generating its own electricity to stave off the effects of a future energy crisis, Pellman said, adding that any "grand master plan" for alternative energy generation would have to be approved by the Board of Supervisors.

Pellman advised residents to keep their own supply of water on hand anyway, since even an earthquake could interrupt water services.

The Antelope Valley-East Kern Water Agency has backup generators that would allow it to clean water it gets from the State Water Project even if Southern California Edison cut off its electricity, said General Manager Russ Fuller.

Still, officials are discussing options to ensure operations could continue.

"We definitely are concerned about the power crisis," Fuller said. "We're kicking ideas around, but at this point we don't have anything definite as far as generating our own power."

AVEK can use diesel fuel in its operations but air quality regulations limit diesel use to 200 hours per year.

As for the Littlerock Creek Irrigation District, nature has helped eased its worries over its power supply, said General Manager Brad Bones.

The slope of the foothills keeps water flowing, so the district doesn't need to use as much power, he said. The district could sustain an eight-hour blackout without any problem, he said.

Building equipment to generate its own power, like the Palmdale Water District may do, would not be cost-effective for the Littlerock district, Bones said.

"We're quite a bit smaller (than Palmdale) and that would become quite expensive," he said.

Still, the district is adding auxiliary power sources to one of its booster pumps and one of its wells to make sure it can maintain operations beyond the eight-hour window.

Water districts have already been dealing with news of shrinking water allocations from the state this year. AVEK and the Palmdale Water District will receive only 20% of their requested allocations from the State Water Project.

Since the state announced the allocations, rains have fallen steadily on Southern California and that could create a rosier picture for water districts - that is, if the state can solve its power situation. If not, much of that water will go toward hydro-generation, LaMoreaux said.

"If it wasn't for the power shortage in the state, I would think this last round of storms would make the water situation look better," he said.

The California Energy Commission reports that people can be guardedly optimistic about the state's ability to supply electricity during the summer months.

Susanne Garfield, a spokeswoman for the commission, said the state has taken measures to ensure it can provide an adequate supply of power for the summer months.

To keep a 7% reserve, the state will have to use existing resources coupled with 1,200 megawatts of power generated by new power plants that should be online by then.

It will also have to set up engines in various industrial facilities and other locations to generate another 1,000 megawatts of power. It strings the engines together to generate the electricity, Garfield said.

"What we were experiencing this winter was a market problem. It wasn't a generation problem," Garfield said. "We had an inordinate amount of megawatts not available to the California market."

Gov. Gray Davis is negotiating with investor-owned utilities to buy transmission lines that would ensure more power to residents of the state.

Alis Clausen of Southern California Edison said water districts need not worry about Edison cutting off power to their entire operations. Outages, if needed, are planned so they hit small areas that are geographically separate, and they hit each area for only an hour at a time.

"They're spread out to make sure we have one neighborhood out of hundreds of neighborhoods out, and then after an hour you switch to another neighborhood out of hundreds," Clausen said.

Water districts rank on the California Public Utilities Commission's list of priority customers whose access to power takes precedence in the event of a blackout.

The priorities were set in a 1980 decision by the commission and include agencies providing fire, police and prison services, water and sewage utilities and certain hospitals.