Rubber dams. Public-private partnerships. These and other ideas are flowing freely at the Santa Margarita Water District headquarters as officials work to meet the challenge of providing abundant and reliably sourced water for the district’s Southern California customers.
The district is situated south of Los Angeles and serves parts of Mission Viejo, Rancho Santa Margarita and several other small communities. Its boundaries angle down across a large bloc of unincorporated Orange County before stopping short of the Pacific coast. In all, some 160,000 customers depend on the district for their water. Their dependency has district officials methodically working to
