VC farmers face a high likelihood of having their water supplies cut at least 30% next year, and possibly more.
“There is a great likelihood, ninety-nine percent I’d say, of at least a thirty percent cut,” to Valley Center’s farmers next year, Valley Center Municipal Water District Gen. Mgr. Gary Arant told directors on Monday.
With California in the second year of a drought, and at least a 50-50 chance of a federal judge ordering pumps at the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta turned off to protect the delta smelt, the Metropolitan Water District, the supplier of water to all of Southern California, is warning its customers of the coming cuts.
The judge’s decision is expected by the end of this month. If he does order the pumps shut down, local farmers could be ordered to cut their usage by 50% or more.
At the same time the Colorado River, the source of 60% of Southern California’s water, is in its eighth year of drought.
Probably the only thing that could save farmers next year would be an over abundant snowfall in the Sierras beginning in the fall.
Already agencies such as VCMWD, which buys its imported water from the Met through the intermediary of the San Diego County Water Authority, are being told to come up with plans to save water in advance of next January, when the cuts are expected to take effect.
They are being given until Aug. 10 to produce the plans.
Valley Center’s district is very near to having its conservation plans finalized.
The formal announcements of cuts are expected to be made in the fall.
If that happens it will give a sense of deja vu to many farmers who remember the nearly catastrophic water cutbacks of the 1990s.
“Compared to the early 90s we have a lot of time to prepare and get everybody on the same page to make sure that it goes as well as possible,” Arant told the board.
Only growers who are part of the IAWP (Interim Agricultural Water Program), which gives them lower prices in exchange for requiring that they cut back during dry years, will be told to cut.
But that’s almost all farmers in the district. It generally doesn’t include flower growers, although there are some 1,500 acres of flowers that come under the IAWP.
Growers who are part of the program as of January of this year won’t be allowed to leave it until after the expected emergency passes. Which could be years.
Any grower who left the program in 2006 won’t be subject to the cutbacks.
Farmers will be given a monthly allocation of water. The allocation will be based on their water use in 2006-2007 (the just completed year).
Growers and agencies who use more than their allocated water face 100% penalties, i.e. $1212 an acre foot.
Scofflaws will also face having their water allocations cut the following year by the amount that they go over.
No one will be able to plead ignorance of the situation. The district plans to communicate the new rules to growers several times. The San Diego County Farm Bureau will be putting together seminars on the new realities.
Some growers are expected to stump their trees and resume production in a few years. For instance, citrus trees can be stumped and then kept alive with a minimum of watering.
“Because the citrus industry is marginable anyway, we could see a lot of them leave,” predicted Arant.
VCMWD is the largest ag water user among the Met’s Southern California water agencies.
To ensure compliance, inspectors from the Met will do spot audits on a regular basis, according to Arant.
“We would hope to have information out to the growers by October,” he said. “I don’t believe there is a grower out there who doesn’t know that this is coming.”
Growers who use less than their allocations will be able to earn usage credits and roll them over from one six month segment to the next.
Arant said he didn’t think there would be a lot of penalties because there has been a lot of lead time on this program.
An unscheduled emergency break of a high pressure water main Friday afternoon backed up traffic for over five hours on Valley Center Road.
Traffic was rerouted onto Woods Valley and North Lake Wohlford Roads.
The Valley Center Municipal Water District first detected the leak in front of Powerland Equipment around 11:30 a.m. on Friday, according to Gen. Mgr. Gary Arant.
After conferring with the County Dept. of Public Works over the road closure procedures, crews closed the road and began repairs at about 1 pm. They were able to complete the pipe repair and restore the road by 6:30 p.m.
Under normal conditions with leaks on Valley Center Road, water district crews are able to shift traffic and keep two lanes open at all times.
However, with the County of San Diego Valley Center Road Improvement Project, the south bound lane has been shifted west onto the new road and what used to be the south bound lane is now under construction to become the second south bound lane.
The northbound lane where the leak occurred is very narrow.
“With the construction activity immediately adjacent and to the west it was not possible to re-route traffic around the immediate leak site,” according to Arant.
This forced crews to close the lane and route traffic around Woods Valley Road to Lake Wohlford Road and back out to Valley Center road on the east side of Valley Center.
Traffic control personnel were posted at both the Valley Center Road/Woods Valley Road and Woods Valley Road/Lake Wohlford Road intersections to move traffic as rapidly as possible under the circumstances.
The water district is in the midst of a $4.8 million replacement of 17,000 lineal feet of new water lines. water main that is nearly 50 years old.
It was one of those old pipes that developed the leak on Friday.
The replacement is being done in conjunciton with the road widening project, which is scheduled to be completed in another two years.
Valley Center Road has been shut down several times in recent months due to a gas leak and power lines going down.
Each time, because Valley Center Road is the only main road that goes from east to west, it created a huge traffic jam.
Ironicaly, most observers feel that one of the new traffic lanes will be open within the next couple of weeks. Once that happen, incidents such as Friday’s leak would not cause the entire road to be shut down.
Palomar Mountain Volunteer Fire Department’s 30th annual Labor Day barbecue fund-raiser will be held Aug. 3, 11 a.m.– 5 p.m.
According to Fire Chief George Lucia, “This is our only fund-raiser of the year.”
The event includes a barbecue, kids jump and other games, craft & vendor booths, 1929 fire truck rides, a beer garden, and old-fashioned fun like dunking tanks.
Local resident Phillips Reid and Silver State Helicopters win the prize for most innovative fund raising.
Last year Silver State began offering helicopter rides over the mountain for $20 per person. Jerry Airola, owner of Silver State Helicopters, donated the use of two helicopters all day and raised over $3000 for the volunteer fire department.
He will be doing it again this year.
Several businesses have donated drawing prizes. Last year that helped raises thousands of dollars for the department. But the organizers are looking for even more to donate goods and services this year.
Southwest Airlines has donated the grand prize of two tickets to anywhere the airline flies.
Harley Davidson of San Diego has donated a leather jacket as one of the prizes.
Tickets to the drawing are on sale for $1.
“Everyone in San Diego County should make a day trip up to Palomar Mountain—and this is the perfect opportunity,” says mountain resident Sabrina Covington. “You will be amazed at our little bit of Northern California in Southern California.”
It all goes to help fund the volunteer fire department, which is made up of about 25 dedicated men and women serving the small mountain town.
The volunteer firefighters provide 24/7 coverage to about 300 residents and serve as an immediate response team for medical emergencies on the mountain and surrounding roads.
The Labor day barbecue event is the organization's only fund-raiser of the year—raising money for much-needed equipment, gear and fire fighter training.
Directions to the Event
Internet maps or GPS guides are not recommended. Palomar Mountain is located near the cross-section of Hwy S-6 and S-7.
From North County simply take the Hwy 76 from I-5 or I-15. Head east through Pauma Valley and into the La Jolla Indian Reservation and follow the signs up the mountain on S-6/South Grade Rd. From East County take the Hwy 79 to Hwy 76 heading west. Make a right on S-7/East Grade Rd up the mountain. From Escondido, take Valley Parkway east turning into Valley Center Road. Make a right going east on Hwy 76, follow the signs up the mountain on S-6/South Grade Road.
Rincon Reservation Fire Chief Gerad Rodriguez and B-shift firefighters pose next to their brand new Pierce Type 4-wheel drive wildland fire engine. The new engine has a price tag of $255,000 and is considered the Cadillac of fire engines. It is built especially for fighting wildfires. The engine can carry 500 gallons and can pump and roll, so it can put water on fire while driving slowly. It was specially built to deal with the hilly terrain of Rincon reservation. It is also capable of applying foam. The reservation is expecting two more new engines in October.
Marc Rizzotto’s cell phone plays the theme from The Munsters.
Two weekends ago the 31-year old VC resident was one of maybe 100,000 people, many of them horror fans, who were haunting the annual Comicon at the San Diego Convention Center.
Except that in his case, he was plugging his own soon-to-be completed horror film.
On weekends he works on the love of his life, a movie called A Fist Full of Flapjacks, a short feature with dark humor, blood and gore. I know, we referenced blood twice. That’s ‘cause we LIKE blood.
The movie IS the love of his life. When a recent (former) girlfriend accused him of caring more about his movie than he did her, he countered, “Well, duh!”
Fist Full of Flapjacks, his second film, is what Rizzotto describes as dark, humorous horror, similar to The Evil Dead or the more recent Shaun of the Dead.
He is filming it in Valley Center on Carabou Lane, off Woods Valley Road, on property owned by the Rob Chini family. It is a forestry campground setting, close to Bates Nut Farm.
The film is scheduled to shoot in late August and early September.
Rizzotto employs what he calls his “all-star cast,” all non-professional actors from the area.
“They are just willing and believe in the cause,” he says.
This short film is actually a sequel to his first short film: Home Sweet Homicide. That film was 9 minutes and 24 seconds long. It’s a silent film with music, because back then he lacked the equipment for anything more.
“That movie I made one hundred percent by myself,” he recalls. “I did everything but act.”
He directed, wrote the screenplay, did all the special effects, edited, everything.
“Me and my friend Jason Buckingham talked about the idea for two days. On the third day we shot the whole film. I edited it in one week,” he says. It cost all of $100 to produce.
Buckingham played a psychotic killer named Hungry Jack.
“I couldn’t have done anything of it without Jason, He is fifty percent of it. He’s a strong backer, with a lot of love. He has the same love and obsession. He’s the star,” says Rizzotto.
You can view Home Sweet Homicide on YouTube, the popular Internet repository of amateur video. Just search Home Sweet Homicide and Horror Movie and it will pop up on top.
“It was surprisingly pretty decent for my first film,” observes Rizzotto.
“After people saw what I created by myself, others were anxious to get on board. So I assembled a production team. Me and Jason. He and I decided to make a sequel and make it bigger and better now that we have an actual production team.”
They teamed up with another friend, Shane Mitchell, an electronics and computer guru.
Mitchell, who was an electronics technician in the army, built an array of special effects pararphernalia, including LED lights, circuit boards, and non-lethal exploding blood packs, which explode off people’s chest with a realistically gory look.
Rizzotto cheerfully adds, “With the help of my friend Bart McDonald we managed to rig a special effect to where it looks like someone is getting the back of their head blown out [from a gun shot]. I’m very pleased how that turned out.”
The finished film should be between 25-35 minutes long.
The purpose is to get Rizzotto and his film company noticed by Hollywood.
“I’m going to be pushing it at every convention,” he said when he was interviewed just prior to Comicon.
“I’m going to do Comicon, and the Fangoria Weekend of Horror. I’ll be sending it to Sundance and everybody else,” he says.
Rizzotto has formed his own company, and launched a Web site: www.horrornightproductions.com/
He seeks business sponsors interested in having their names appear in the film using product placement. Money raised will be used to finance the film’s DVD.
He shoots with a JVC GY-DV 500, which is fairly recent technology. The camera was once used to film TV commercials.
He is also using multiple “handicams” for special shots.
“I really make it a point to employ creative and obscure uses of the camera. I think that is entertaining for the audience to watch,” he says. “Handicams are really small so you can put them anywhere.”
Although Rizzotto has kept his “day job” as a finish carpenter while he’s pursuing his dream, he ultimately wants to make a living doing films.
“I don’t have time for friends, for relationships. I work on multimillion homes by day and on this film every night. That’s all my life is—work. My heart and my passion is in these films,” he says.
“I am a natural born film maker. I know what films should look like,” he says.
His first film, Home Sweet Homicide used some copyrighted material from other sources. That’s why it ended up on YouTube, which doesn’t use copyrighted works.
His current film will be 100% original, including original music from Wither, an Escondido band. It will be scored by Raven White, also an Escondido musician and will use additional music from Man Down, a Los Angeles band.
It has an ensemble cast of six actors.
Make-up is an important factor in films where characters get their heads blown away or off, and Rizzotto is especially proud of his make-up artist.
“Bridget Winborn in Los Angeles is an absolutely phenomenal make up artist who makes her own molds, casts her own prosthetics. She is sacrificing her time to come down from LA. to work on my films,” he says.
Rizzotto is entirely self-taught. “I taught myself how to edit, how to use a camera. My heart is bigger for this than the training. There is so much love that I have for it. I know what a film has to look like, and I make it look like it’s supposed to look. It’s a God-given talent.”
He’s extremely hands on, getting right in there to get the bloody effects just so.
He also does his own cinematography. “I don’t trust anyone else behind the camera,” he says.
Other associates include Micaela Ortega and Jessica Chambers, who are handling marketing, wardrobe, promotions and where they will premier the film.
That will most likely be in December or January. He hopes to premier it in Escondido at a venue where the bands featured will be able to play live.
“My vision for Horrornight Productions is to make horror films that are both fun and disturbing to watch. So viewers will experience comic relief and be entertained and be horrified.”
He prides himself on using old school handmade effects, staying away from CGI (computer generated images).
“In Home Sweet Homicide I had the actor cut off a guy’s leg with a chain saw and bash his head with an axe. I made the leg and head from scratch and it looked very believable.
His favorite horror films include Evil Dead Part II, the 1990 remake of Night of the Living Dead, the Hell Raiser films; Dog Soldiers, and Peter Jackson’s Dead Alive.
Some of his horror film idols are Sam Ramme, Peter Jackson, George Romero, Tom Savini and Vincent Price.
“I’m way into horror film, but I’m not trying to scare people. I’m trying to entertain people. I want to do what the early Peter Jackson and Sam Ramme films did. I don’t want people to think that I’m evil. I think horror is entertaining and best when it is comical. That’s entertainment. It’s a roller coaster ride. That’s what I’m trying to create.”
He can’t wait to see his creation on the big screen.
“It’s going to be beautiful!”
The Valley Roadrunner
P.O.B. 1529, Valley Center, CA 92082
Tel. 760.749.1112 Fax 760.749.1688
Website: www.valleycenter.com
Email: editor@valleycenter.com
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