A major regional water treatment plant serving residents and businesses in San Diego and southwest Riverside counties returned to service today—two days ahead of schedule—after undergoing a series of upgrades and repairs.

Consumers, who had been asked by the Metropolitan Water District, San Diego County Water Authority, Eastern Municipal Water District and Western Municipal Water District to voluntarily conserve water while Metropolitan’s Robert A. Skinner Water Treatment Plant was shut down, may now return to normal water usage.

“Crews worked around the clock to minimize any inconvenience to consumers in the region,” said Debra C. Man, Metropolitan’s chief operating officer.  “We’re enormously pleased the work was completed so quickly and successfully.”

Located east of Temecula, Metropolitan’s Skinner plant, which treats water imported from Northern California and the Colorado River, was shut down early Nov.  27.  The plant was expected to be out of service until late Thursday, Dec. 7, while work took place to increase the plant’s water treatment capacity, improve water quality processes and modify chemical handling capabilities.

Metropolitan, however, began making limited treated water deliveries from the plant to local agencies late last night and returned Skinner to full service today.  The shutdown work is part of $400 million in construction under way at the facility.

Although most local agencies in the Skinner plant’s service area had groundwater and reservoir supplies to call upon to meet retail demands during the outage, some local agencies in north San Diego County instituted mandatory restrictions.  Residents, businesses and local growers, particularly in north San Diego County, were requested to contact their local water supplier to determine water-use restrictions for their area.

“We greatly appreciate the support from consumers throughout the region, whose water-saving efforts helped maintain adequate supplies for the area,” Man said.  “We’re very pleased to complete this work, which will allow construction to upgrade the plant to remain on schedule.”

Work during the shutdown centered on Metropolitan’s plans to increase the plant’s treatment capacity by 110 million gallons per day by next summer.  Water quality improvements are scheduled to become operational in 2007 and 2009.

At the same time the treatment plant was shut down, Metropolitan inspected and made repairs to major water delivery canals and pipelines that service the area, as well as to valves, meters and other equipment.
In addition, the San Diego County Water Authority conducted pipeline inspections and completed necessary repairs during the shutdown.

Metropolitan routinely schedules shutdowns of its facilities in winter months, when temperatures usually are cooler and demands are lower, to complete inspections and perform maintenance and upgrades with the least impact on consumers, Man said.

Metropolitan’s Skinner plant is a primary source of supplemental, treated drinking water to communities served by Eastern and Western, which both rely on Metropolitan water for about 80 percent of their water supply needs.  The Water Authority calls upon Metropolitan’s imported supplies for up to 90 percent of its water needs.

The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California is a cooperative of 26 cities and water agencies serving 18 million people in six counties. The district imports water from the Colorado River and Northern California to supplement local supplies, and helps its members to develop increased water conservation, recycling, storage, and other resource-management programs.