San Bernardino Valley Municipal Water District (“Valley District”) has agreed to pay East Valley Water District (“EVWD”) to recharge up to 11,000 AF of recycled water in the San Bernardino Basin Area. The water would come from EVWD’s proposed Sterling Natural Resource Center, which would provide 11,000 AF at full build out.
Valley District will pay a minimum $173/AF for each acre-foot recharged, or about $2 million per year, for 20 years. Funding will come from Local Resources Investment Program (“LRIP”), which the board approved in August 2018 to provide financial incentive to agencies in Valley District’s service area to construct projects that would provide a new source of supplemental water, such as recycling or stormwater capture. The LRIP is intended to reduce the region’s reliance on SWP supplies, and the incentive is equivalent to Valley District’s avoided cost of not having to important that volume of SWP water. The inventive will be recalculated every two years, but participating agencies will never receive an amount lower than their original incentive amount.
Due to ongoing drought, Valley District is seeking to build “a more robust, long-term portfolio of reliable water supplies.” While there has been significant work on use of stormwater and enhanced efficient, Valley District believes recycled water is relatively untapped. EVWD’s Sterling Natural Resource Center will eventually meet 73% of the LRIP’s 15,000 AF goal. In addition, Valley District is developing its own water recycling facility, the Clean Water Factory, and two of the five municipal owned wastewater treatment plants in the service area are already delivering recycled water.
Written by Marta L. Weismann