Two of the San Diego County Water Authority’s smallest customers — avocado and citrus farming communities in North County tired of paying ever-rising water rates to urbanize San Diego — were prepared to leave quietly in search of cheaper water elsewhere.
These water divorce proceedings began back in 2020. But at the 11th hour, the Water Authority started pulling out all the stops to keep them in line, and all hell broke loose. The Water Authority leaned on powerful friends at the State Capitol and former enemies in Los Angeles, where the biggest water supplier in the world lives: the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California.
The Water Authority also turned to the courts, dropping a 360-page lawsuit against its defectors, Rainbow Municipal Water District and Fallbrook Public Utilities District, and a little-known organization that gave them permission to leave: the Local Agency Formation Commission or LAFCO.
But the Water Authority’s effort to quash its deserters had an unintended effect: It suddenly thrust the agency’s inner turmoil into the limelight.
“I spent zero time ever contemplating the Water Authority. I largely assumed all was well,” said Keene Simmonds, the executive officer of LAFCO. “Now we can’t ignore the fact that an outside expert has told us their system is broken.”
