Borrego Water District Update
Last updated 1/20/2025 at 9:12am
With the recent power outages and tragic fires in Los Angeles, the BWD is concentrating even further on its own disaster preparedness efforts. Steps have already been taken between BWD and County Fire to improve our preparedness and incident response.
Unfortunately, due to the frequency of power outages in Borrego Springs, BWD staff has been hooking up generators to our wells and keeping the tanks full for decades. The process of keeping the water flowing during a power outage is fairly simple.
Water weighs 8.34 lbs per gallon which creates water pressure when put in the waterlines. Elevation change from the tanks on the hill takes advantage of that weight and creates one lb of water pressure for every 2.41 ft of elevation change. If your home was 100 ft below the tank, your pressure would be 100/2.31 = 43 psi. Therefore as long as the tanks have water, the system has constant pressure under normal conditions.
The other factor in maintaining water pressure are the combined flows of multiple hydrants running simultaneously, plus private sprinklers, garden hoses and other uses. When multiple hydrants/hoses/etc... are used at the same time, the cumulative impact is an increase of flow inside the pipelines that exceeds design standards and a decrease in output occurs caused by the friction of water and the pipeline.
As more hydrants/hoses are turned on, the situation gets worse. When tens or dozens of hydrants are used at the same time, a scenario could easily be created where flows out of the hydrants are constantly declining and eventually run dry because the pumps feeding the tanks cannot keep up and the tanks are emptied.
BWD does not have the wildland interface fire risks as most of San Diego County, but we do have our risks. The most likely event in Borrego Springs would be an earthquake that sparked multiple fires during a power outage. BWD and the County Fire Department have already began to discuss ways we can be better prepared.
The first step that is being initiated is a new notification process where BWD will be notified by the County when a fire event is happening. BWD will respond 24-7 to make sure the fire protection system (hydrants flows/pressures/etc..) are functioning as designed. If not, immediate steps can be taken to minimize the impact.
BWD has also suggested to the County that a similar system be incorporated throughout San Diego County. The larger agencies in San Diego County with wildland interface issues could also benefit from this simple notification system that started in Borrego Springs.
Stay tuned as further steps are taken to improve preparedness. BWD and the County will continue to communicate and improve our preparedness even further.