Avalon residents can expect a 50 percent cut in water usage, which is stage three of water rationing, to be pushed back as far as the middle of October of this year.
Jeff Lawrence, project manager for Edison, reported the extended date this week during Avalon’s City Council meeting on Tuesday Aug. 18.
Lawrence also said Edison was preparing a letter to send to the California Public Utilities Commission about possibly deferring stage three longer due to the desalination unit to be installed at the Pebbly Beach Desalination plant in the near future.
Avalon residents can expect a 50 percent cut in water usage, which is stage three of water rationing, to be pushed back as far as the middle of October of this year.
Jeff Lawrence, project manager for Edison, reported the extended date this week during Avalon’s City Council meeting on Tuesday Aug. 18.
Lawrence also said Edison was preparing a letter to send to the California Public Utilities Commission about possibly deferring stage three longer due to the desalination unit to be installed at the Pebbly Beach Desalination plant in the near future.
The new desalination unit is currently sitting in Long Beach waiting to be freighted over on Aug. 24. Lawrence said that they hope to have the new unit installed and producing fresh water by October.
Also during the meeting, Lawrence reported the results of the current stage of water rationing for the month of June.
Water usage was down almost 40 percent in June compared to a year ago.
“That’s phenomenal,” said Lawrence.
The drop in usage came at a time when Avalon saw about a seven percent hike in visitors.
Lawrence said that amounted to about 12 acre feet of water saved.
“I want to thank the people of Avalon for an awesome job we’ve done to save water,” said Councilman Joe Sampson.
“We pushed back stage three to October, and we are also setting an example for California and the rest of the world of what can be achieved if you try,” Sampson said.
Since the start of stage two water rationing in 2012, Avalon has seen about a 35 percent decrease in overall water usage.
This water use decrease occured while visitation to the Island has increased over 13 percent since 2012.
The cuts being made by Avalon residents have aided the effort to stall stage three but Lawrence said that there has been a consistent drop of about two acre feet a week at the Middle Ranch Reservoir.
At the time of the update, the water level at the reservoir was at 231 acre feet. Stage three takes effect when the level hits 200 acre feet.
