Two North San Diego County water districts are filing suit against the city of San Diego over the state of the Lake Hodges dam, which the districts allege resulted in the loss of a local water supply.
The Santa Fe Irrigation District announced the lawsuit, to be jointly filed with the San Dieguito Water District, on July 25.
In the statement, the district alleged that:
✔ A lack of proper Lake Hodges dam maintenance led to an unsatisfactory rating by the state’s Division of Safety of Dams, which mandated a restricted lower lake level.
✔ The districts lost about $21 million, the equivalent of two years worth of water supply, because about 17,000 acre feet, or 5.5 billion gallons, of the districts’ water had to be released into the ocean.
✔ The Santa Fe Irrigation District had to develop a new rate structure because of the loss in supply, with some customers seeing upward of a 40% rate increase on their bi-monthly bills.
✔ The city of San Diego violated California’s Public Records Act.
“Litigation was not the path that our District wanted to take, but we were left with no choice by the City of San Diego,” Michael T. Hogan, Santa Fe Irrigation Board of Directors president, said in the agency’s news release. “If they had been the responsible owner of the dam, lived up to their contractual obligations, and engaged in meaningful discussions with us over the years about maintenance or lack thereof, and their potential solutions, we would not be moving forward with this lawsuit. However, the City did not do that, and this Board has a fiduciary responsibility to our ratepayers to mitigate the financial impacts our customers have been and will continue to experience due to the city’s negligence.”
A Santa Fe district rate increase of 5% went into effect Jan. 1. At the time of increase’s approval, board Vice President Dana Friehuaf cited the loss of Lake Hodges water as part of the reason.
“The increase makes sense as we are using more imported water supplies in the foreseeable future due to restrictions on our local water supply from Lake Hodges,” Friehuaf said in a November 2023 news release. “We will continue to find creative ways to manage our internal costs and remain active at the (San Diego County) Water Authority to help with solutions to reduce costs for the benefits of our rate payers and communities.”
The more than century-old Lake Hodges dam was built in 1918 by the San Dieguito Mutual Water Company and Santa Fe Land Improvement Company, which was financed by the Santa Fe Railroad and led to the creation of the Rancho Santa Fe community. Ownership of the lake and dam transferred to the city of San Diego in 1925.
The Santa Fe Irrigation District receives about 30% of its annual water supply from Lake Hodges for customers in Rancho Santa Fe, Fairbanks Ranch and Solana Beach.
The San Dieguito Water District is an agency of the city of Encinitas that provides potable and recycled water services to the communities of Old Encinitas, Leucadia, Cardiff and parts of New Encinitas. The water district was formed in 1922 as the San Dieguito Irrigation District.
“Infrastructure maintenance is a critical part of delivering water to our customers, and that has not been done, even though our District has been paying our share of maintenance costs,” Santa Fe’s Hogan said in Santa Fe’s July 25 news release. “We are hopeful that we will continue our discussions with the City despite the filing of our claims and hope to resolve this matter positively for our ratepayers.”
During a 2022 inspection, San Diego found water leakage and decaying rebar exposed by eroding concrete on the dam’s face, the city announced at the time. Emergency repairs were made following an underwater assessment. Additional issues, including a hole, were found when the water level was lowered to perform the repairs, which were completed in 2023.
In late November 2022, the city of San Diego had to release about 250 million gallons from Lake Hodges into the San Dieguito River so the lake could be lowered by about 2 feet to 275 feet because of heavy rainfall, according to a city announcement at the time.
“For safety reasons, the California Division of Safety of Dams has mandated that the water level at Hodges Reservoir not exceed 275 feet, which is 40 feet below the spillway elevation,” the city’s news release stated. “The dam captures water from the San Dieguito Watershed, which extends 248 square miles and is the largest watershed feeding City reservoirs. To maintain the reservoir at the mandated level, the City may periodically release water from Hodges Reservoir after heavy precipitation.”
