Contact Person Larry McKenney
Address: 9 Cottage Lane, Aliso Viejo, CA 92656
Telephone Number/Fax Number (7 60) 725-1059 FAX (760) 725-1058
Email/Web Page Address mckenneyl@pendleton.usmc.mil
There have been three great efforts to approach management of the water and water-related resources in the Santa Margarita River watershed, and all three have failed. A new effort is about to be launched, although it may come out of any of several different programs that are tending in that direction. No matter its origin, the next effort to create such a program should learn from the previous failures.
The Original Problem: Water Supply In 1951, water supply was the main problem. Water rights to the river and its connected groundwater basins had been the subject of litigation since the 1 920s, although a fragile peace had been achieved in 1940. The Marine Corps had since created Camp Pendleton, and the downstream use of water was growing. Upstream, Vail Ranch remained an important agricultural water user. In between, Fallbrook Public Utility District served a rapidly growing agricultural region and hoped to dam the river for water supply. In 1951, the United States sued Fallbrook PUD to quiet its title to senior water rights. Litigation in federal court was the only tool available at the time to address such an issue. After the suit was tried once between several major water users, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed and sent the case back to trial because such water rights cannot be adjudicated except on a watershed basis. The United States then joined thousands of property owners as defendants and took the case to court again. The publicity and political reaction were a disaster for the Marine Corps. More than fifteen years later, the case finally sputtered to a stop, not really concluded. It remains a pending case, but since then the parties have sought to negotiate solutions to their contentions. Success has not yet been achieved.
The Second Problem: Water Quality At the end of the active litigation, a joint powers agency was formed in the Santa Margarita and San Luis Rey River watersheds. The IPA provided administrative support to the federal court appointed Watermaster who was overseeing efforts to settle the water rights adjudication. In 1972 the Clean Water Act was enacted and directed the development of water quality control plans. The WA obtained a §208 planning grant, under the Clean Water Act, which it used to fund development of the water quality control plan for the two watersheds. That plan became a part of the first San Diego Regional Board basin plan. Despite this initial success and productivity, the WA, is now virtually inactive. Part of the problem is that the issues in each watershed and their relative priorities have diverged, making it difficult for the WA to retain a sense of a defined character or purpose. The other key shortcoming of the JPA is its composition entirely of water supply agencies, which narrows its approach to the issues. The San Luis Rey River now has a watershed council completely separate from the WA, while the Santa Margarita River efforts have again stalled, as described below.
The Latest Challenge: Connecting Water and Land Use Most accept that the watershed approach is a holistic consideration of all water related resource issues, including water supply, water quality for humans and the ecosystem including nonpoint source pollution issues, habitat health and physical integrity, recreational opportunities, and flood protection. This means that water resource planning must be linked in a meaningful way to land use regulation. An effort to implement such an approach in the Santa Margarita in the early 1 990s stalled after two years of effort and significant state and federal agency support. In part, the financial support of U.S. EPA and the California Coastal Conservancy proved to be problematic, as it aroused local suspicions. Another problem not solved was the need to be inclusive of the full range of stakeholder interests, yet keep the working teams or committees from becoming too cumbersome. Here, the advisory committees took on all volunteers. Not only were the committees and therefore difficult to manage, but a small group of stakeholders used the program's lack of structure and focus to disrupt and delay progress. As time passed and the issues became politicized, the scientific and technical momentum was lost. The controversies sapped the political will of the program's key supporters, and the program was shelved.
There is hope yet that the watershed initiative will be revived, either in its old incarnation with improvements, or as a result of efforts by the Regional Water Quality Control Board (centered on the municipal stormwater program), the Mission Resource Conservation District (as in the San Luis Rey River), or an Army Corps of Engineers cost-shared initiative. Ultimately, though, a successful effort must be locally driven and controlled.