Printer-friendly version
By Mike Allen
December 13, 2023 (San Diego’s East County)--
The Padre Dam Municipal Water District says it has filed a lawsuit against one of its biggest customers, the Grossmont-Cuyamaca Community College District, over allegedly taking water through unmetered lines without paying for it.
The suit, filed in San Diego Superior Court Dec. 12, according to Padre, is seeking in excess of $200,000 for the unauthorized water, and three times that amount in further damages along with the costs of the suit and reasonable attorney’s fees.
The dispute stems from an agreement the two agencies signed in 2015 that outlines how the college district would assume the repair and maintenance for water infrastructure at Grossmont College as it was constructing new buildings at the El Cajon campus. The agreement outlined specific steps the college had to follow to enable the transfer of water lines.
According to Padre Dam’s suit, the college district never made the required improvements to achieve the transfer of the water lines. Those improvements were estimated by Padre Dam to be about $15 million.
In 2019, the Fire Marshall visited Grossmont, and told the district it needed to either make upgrades to campus buildings by adding fire sprinkler systems or meet higher fire flow pressure requirements.
Grossmont hired a technical expert to figure how it could increase the water pressure so it could satisfy the requirements set by the Fire Marshall. That expert, Michael Baker International, told the district it could increase the pressure by having its main water tank filed to a higher level, specifically by more than 432,000 gallons, according to Padre Dam’s suit.
Padre Dam responded it couldn’t do that because it would result “in water quality issues that cannot be reasonably mitigated and/or were cost prohibitive.”
Padre Dam said in the suit it wasn’t permitted to do the necessary improvements requested by Grossmont because it would amount to its ratepayers subsidizing Grossmont, which is illegal under California law.
Then in February 2022, according to Padre Dam’s suit, it discovered that Grossmont College made some unapproved above ground alterations to Padre Dam’s utility lines and fixtures, using water through an unmetered connection to service the college’s main chiller plant building.
Padre Dam said it was a clear case of theft and in February of this year filed a claim for more than $25,000 for the unpaid water.
Anne Krueger, Grossmont-Cuyamaca interim director of public information, said the district was disappointed to learn it was being sued. She said the district had yet to be served so it didn’t know all the specific allegations.
“We have been discussing several related water service issues with Padre Dam officials for more than a year in a good-faith attempt to reach a global resolution. It is surprising that under such circumstances Padre Dam would accuse the Grossmont-Cuyamaca Community College District of water ‘theft’ in an effort to distract from Padre Dam’s failure to provide sufficient water infrastructure,” Krueger said.
She added that over the past several decades the Grossmont district “purchased far greater water capacity, paying tens of millions of dollars, from Padre Dam than was ever provided.”
Krueger said GCCCD has repeatedly attempted to resolve the dispute through mediation to save taxpayers and ratepayers the expense of litigation.
Bill Pommering, president of the board of directors for Padre Dam, said it was deeply disappointing that his agency had to use litigation against Grossmont-Cuyamaca. “Our intention has always been to find a fair and equitable resolution to the water system transfer and system upgrades,” he said.
“It is unacceptable that Grossmont-Cuyamaca Community College District wants to make Padre Dam customers pay the bill for improvements needed to support its own campus water system. It is our sincere desire that through this process, we can still achieve a mutually agreeable resolution that serves the best interests of both Padre Dam customers and the Grossmont College community.”
Padre Dam Water District provides water and sewer services to a large swath of East County including Santee, El Cajon and Lakeside. The water district, along with the Helix Water District, the city of El Cajon and the county of San Diego, is in the midst of constructing the biggest infrastructure project in the region called Advanced Water Purification system. That system, costing about $1 billion, would take some 15 million gallons of sewage now being treated at the Point Loma plant and send it to a new water purification plant in Santee to be converted to some 11 million gallons of potable water daily, or about 30 percent of the region’s needs.
Recent comments