Winds, Power Outages and Your Water District

Whether it’s storms, fires or earthquakes, there are many reasons why a power outage may occur. Recently, Southern California Edison (SCE) began what it is calling Public Safety Power Shutoffs (PSPS). When weather conditions may create the potential for elevated fire risk, power will be proactively turned off in SCE’s service area. 

Many in the area have been notified about potential outages or have experienced these power outages. These power events impact your water district, too.  Water may flow downhill but it has to get pumped up there first. CVWD uses electricity at all of its sites; whether it’s to operate pumps, provide water treatment or just monitor the system, power in an essential component of District operations.   

The District has made crucial investments in back-up power such as the stationary generator located at the Glenwood Water Treatment Plant. This generator can maintain the Glenwood operations and the wells for two to three days. Generators were also added to most of the District’s critical sites for Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition – SCADA – purposes. SCADA enables the District to monitor and operate its critical resources from the water treatment plant or remotely in the event of power failures. 

The District also has a generator at the main office and four portable generators available to deploy that are used to maintain critical operations like pumping water up the hill. These generators keep water flowing to customers during power outages to ensure public health and fire safety.

Upon notification of a possible PSPS event by SCE, District staff meets to determine the best placement of the District’s generators and other critical items, such as water levels, available resources and an operations plan. Operations staff is cross trained to set-up and operate the generators. Power and wind conditions are closely monitored at night and on weekends to ensure that key District facilities remain operational so that water is available to our customers, even when electricity is not.

The District is now on Facebook! Please stop by and follow our page. The District will be sharing photos from jobs, meeting notices and other interesting facts. 

Please be aware that in the event of an emergency, the best place to get information is from the District’s website – www.cvwd.com – not from social media.

The District also utilizes Nixle text and email alerts for communication with customers who are enrolled in the public safety agencies’ notification program. You may sign up for an account at www.nixle.com.