Tehachapi News

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The Tehachapi-Cummings County Water District (TCCWD) provided a tour on March 14 of the district’s pipeline and pumping facilities that was attended by members of the Tehachapi city staff and two members of the Stallion Springs Board of Directors.

The tour was lead by water district General Manager Glenn Mueller and Assistant Manager John Otto.

“The pumping is expected to last from April 1 to October 15. “We can move all the water they’re giving us by then,” Mueller said.

The tour started with a visit to the California Aqueduct near the Edmonston Pumping plant, at the meter that measures how much water the district draws form the aqueduct to pump to Tehachapi.

From there, the tour proceeded across Tejon Ranch, following the underground, 30-inch diameter, gravity-fed, steel mortar-lined and mortar coated pipe to pumping plant number one. From plant one through plants two, three and four, on to J.C. Jacobsen Lake, a 27-inch line is used. TCCWD has over 30 miles of pipeline in use. The water is pumped up 1,050 feet between each of the first three plants, then another 325 feet from plant four, for a total of 3,475 feet to the lake. The pumps move between 6,272 and 8,960 gallons per minute to the lake, when in operation.
The Jacobsen Lake Reservoir is at an elevation of 4,363 feet, and holds 1,850 acre-feet of water, or 602,824,350 gallons. To provide some perspective, an Olympic-sized swimming pool holds an estimated 253,000 gallons.

The pumps use natural gas-fired engines, running at 1,200 RPM at full-power. According to Mueller, the TCCWD typically burns between $12,500 and $14,500 per day in natural gas, when pumping.
The actual cost of water delivered to Tehachapi was estimated at $1,100 per acre foot in 2007. According to TCCWD, an acre foot of water, is the equivalent of one acre of water, one foot deep, or approximately 325,851 gallons.
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Water board considers
rate increase
The 2008 Water Rate Committee presented a preliminary report to the TCCWD Board of Directors at the March board meeting on a water rate increase. It included a recommendation for notification of property owners and potential customers, under the guidelines of Proposition 218. This would also include notification of all current Municipal & Industrial (M&I) customers.

The concept utilized would set the Term M&I, per acre foot water price based on natural gas fuel cost increases or decreases each year. These costs would include the gas pipeline, transportation costs, lube oil, Board of Equalization taxes and the annual Mojave Pipeline maintenance costs. The exact formula is still being worked out.

The committee also recommended that the agricultural (Ag) water rate be adjusted over a five year period. The result would be 85 percent of the term M&I rate. The differential in rates is due to an allowance for return flow to underground water basins in agricultural use.

There will be several more meetings with the users involved before any increase is finalized.