Rainbow water district may halt sewer hookups

By: TOM PFINGSTEN - Staff Writer
Number sold has exceeded capacity in contract with Oceanside | Saturday, March 15, 2008 10:33 PM PDT ∞

Leobardo Mora stands on his hilltop property where he wants to build a seven bedroom home for his family in Bonsall on Thursday. Mora has been told he cannot purchase a sewer connection from the Rainbow Municipal Water District and his property is too rocky to build a septic tank.
HAYNE PALMOUR IV Staff Photographer
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FALLBROOK ---- Rainbow Municipal Water District officials said last week they were considering a moratorium on new sewer connections because they have sold more hookups than the district has the capacity to serve.

The proposed moratorium, if approved, would affect primarily individual landowners planning to build whose property won't support septic systems.

It is not expected to affect large projects within the district such as Passerelle's proposed housing development or the Palomar extension campus, both of which have sewer hookups on reserve.

But already the proposal is making it difficult for potential customers such as Leobardo Mora to build on their land.

Mora said last week he knows exactly where he wants to build his dream home: On a hilltop in Bonsall with 360-degree views and a cool coastal breeze blowing up the San Luis Rey River valley.

Of all the things that could have delayed his plans for an 8,000-square-foot estate, Mora has been denied a sewer connection, bringing his project to a halt.

"My plan is to build, but right now, I can't do anything because I don't have a sewer connection," he said Thursday, standing atop the picturesque site where he wants to build his mansion. "I don't want to sell."

With 10 acres, it should be a simple fix ---- there's ample room for a septic tank and leach lines ---- but Mora said that a soil engineer recently confirmed that the hillside is too rocky to install a septic system.

The site has everything else, including a water connection and approved building plans, but without the sewer connection, the project is on hold.

The district's board of directors is set to discuss the proposed moratorium, and possibly take action on it, at a meeting in early April. The item was originally on the agenda for a March 25 meeting, but had to be delayed because the discussion is expected to take several hours, said the district's general manager, Dave Seymour.

If approved, it will forbid the issuing of any more sewer connections until about 200 are turned back in to the district by developers who don't need them and don't want to pay the monthly fee to keep them on reserve.

Officials said the moratorium does not necessarily equate to a "no-growth" policy, because about 2,200 hookups have been reserved but not activated ---- meaning more than 2,000 homes could still be built with the sewer connections that exist.

But for property owners who waited too long to buy a hookup or who are just starting to build a home, the only solution is to wait until the district has more connections to sell ---- which might be years away.

By the numbers

At issue is how many sewer connections can be sold and used in the district, which does not have its own treatment plant but sends sewage from its customers to Oceanside to be treated.

According to its contract with Oceanside, the district can send 1,425,000 gallons of sewage per day to be treated ---- a number that equals 5,700 households generating an average of 250 gallons of sewage per day.

To date, the district has issued permits for about 5,800 households, although only 3,600 are currently in use.

The other 2,200 have been reserved by developers and private landowners with plans to build in the near future. Each unused connection costs about $42 per month to reserve, Seymour said.

By far the largest holder of sewer hookups is Passerelle, a housing developer with plans for hundreds of homes at the northeast corner of Interstate 15 and Highway 76.

Seymour said Passerelle has reserved 850 sewer hookups.

The second-largest chunk of future sewer connections has been reserved by Palomar College, which is paying to hold 100 hookups for the extension campus it has planned on 83 acres near Passerelle's proposed neighborhood.

"The rest are kind of divvied up amongst smaller owners who have maybe a 10-acre lot they want to build on eventually," Seymour said.

Mora said he was originally told 62 hookups were available when he applied for one last year, and that when his application was denied he felt that he had been dealt with unfairly.

But Seymour said no one who approaches the district for a new sewer connection at this point is getting one.

No good solutions

The only two ways to increase sewer capacity would be for the district to buy permission to export more sewage to Oceanside or to build its own treatment plant, an idea that's expensive and unpopular with many ratepayers, Seymour said.

"First, politically, where are you going to site it?" he said. "Nobody wants a sewage treatment plant in their backyard. And all the unused land around here seems to be environmentally sensitive."

Then there's the issue of building a pipeline carrying the treated water to the Pacific Ocean.

"It would probably cost somewhere from $20 (million) to $50 million, just to build a small plant and the pipelines that would be necessary," he said.

On the other hand, the option of purchasing more capacity from Oceanside would not be much easier, he said.

To begin with, Oceanside would have to agree to the deal, and then the pipeline that carries sewage between the Rainbow district and the Oceanside treatment plant would have to be expanded.

"The system was only built for 1.5 million gallons per day, so we'd have to expand the pipelines all the way down to Oceanside, and that gets very expensive," he said.

Waiting game

About a half-dozen people have been trying to get sewer hookups in recent weeks, but have been turned away, Seymour said.

Now that the district is set to impose a moratorium, he said, he expects more pleas but his hands are tied.

"I think what will happen is now we'll get a lot more requests ---- people wanting to know what they have to do to reserve capacity, or how they can go about getting it," he said.

The short answer: Wait.

The only way more connections could be sold is if developers turn in unneeded hookups and the number falls below the 5,640 threshold the board is expected to establish when it approves the moratorium, Seymour said.

But for landowners like Mora, patience does not come easily when there's no clear idea of how long it will take for sewer connections to become available.

Taking in the view from where Mora envisions his front porch, it's understandable why he would be in a hurry to start building the house where he, his wife and their five children would live.

"Right now, I can't use the property ---- only for planting avocado trees," he said.

What will he do?

Maybe wait for a sewer connection, or "maybe sell. I'm not sure yet."

Contact staff writer Tom Pfingsten at (760) 740-3516 or tpfingsten@nctimes.com.

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