ENCINITAS — The Encinitas City Council on May 21 received an update on the city’s wastewater capital improvement projects and execution rates for Fiscal Year 2025 and voted unanimously to uphold previously approved sewer service rates for the coming year.
Senior Engineer Dan Nutter, speaking on behalf of the city’s Utilities Department, presented the update, which focused on city-managed projects for the Cardiff and Encinitas sanitation districts. The update did not include joint facility expenditures, such as those associated with the Santa Fe Irrigation District or Encina Wastewater Authority.
Nutter reported that several projects are either completed or in advanced stages, including the completed B Street Sewer Improvements project, which replaced an undersized 8-inch sewer main with a new 12-inch main and installed a new sewer manhole.
The FY 2024 Annual Sewer Rehabilitation project, awarded in October 2024, includes rehabilitating 3.1 miles of sewer main, repairing two manholes, and completing 50 feet of point repairs. The project is estimated to be completed in the next two to three weeks.
The Cottonwood Creek Sewer Improvements project will relocate 500 feet of sewer main out of Cottonwood Creek into an upgraded wastewater maintenance access path, featuring the installation of four new sewer manholes. The project is awaiting coastal development permits and is scheduled to be presented to the Planning Commission on June 6.
Other projects include evaluations of a forcemain running from the Moonlight Beach Pump Station to La Costa Avenue, and the rehabilitation of 19 remaining manholes in Olivenhain as part of a larger effort to upgrade the Olivenhain Trunk Sewer system.
The city’s adopted FY 2025 capital improvement program includes $1.73 million in total appropriations, with $500,000 allocated to the Cardiff sanitary collection system rehabilitation fund, $75,000 to the Cardiff sewer main condition assessment, $1.08 million to the Encinitas sanitary collection system rehabilitation fund, and $75,000 to the Encinitas sewer main condition assessment.
“We have a projected expenditure rate of 128%, and really, what that means for all of you is we are getting a lot of really great work done,” Nutter said. “So it’s, I think, a testament to our team, and we’re looking really good there.”
Deputy Mayor Joy Lyndes praised the utilities team for its performance, noting the challenges posed by supply chain and construction issues.
“Congratulations on implementing the capital program even faster, and sometimes that then helps you get it done a little cheaper, too,” Lyndes said.
Mayor Bruce Ehlers raised questions about budget implications, asking whether assumptions about execution rates — typically set at 75% for water projects — should be reconsidered in light of the higher rate reported for wastewater projects.
“The 75% was on the water side of the house,” Utilities Director Isam Harish said. “On the wastewater side of the house, it was 100% … so there should not be any impact to future budgets, as we see.”
Harish explained that carryover funds from previous years helped boost current spending totals beyond initial appropriations.
Council voted unanimously to receive and file the report and to uphold sewer service rates for Fiscal Year 2026, as set by ordinances adopted on May 8, 2024. The rates were originally based on a cost-of-service analysis that assumed full execution of the wastewater capital improvement program through 2029.
