The San Gorgonio Pass Water Agency is a regional water agency that imports State Project Water into the Pass area, sells water to local water retailers, and helps protect our local groundwater basins. The Agency, created in 1961, is one of 29 State Water Contractors, each of whom has the right to purchase water from the State of California and sell that water within its service area on a wholesale or retail basis. The Agency is a water wholesaler; we do not sell water to the end user. The Agency has developed an extensive groundwater database that helps to manage and protect our local groundwater basins, including the Beaumont Basin. The Agency is concerned with meeting water demands from Calimesa to Cabazon.

Much of the area served by the Agency is experiencing severe groundwater overdraft, which means more water is pumped out of the ground each year than is replaced by nature through rain and snowmelt. Since 2003, the Agency has been importing water through the California Aqueduct to recharge local groundwater basins used by retail water companies, private companies, and individuals for domestic and other purposes. Without the water available from the Agency, groundwater levels would continue to decline (in some areas, water levels have decreased nearly 90 feet in the past 70 years) and some wells would dry up, while the power required to pump the water to the surface would continue to increase each year.

The Agency is governed by an elected Board of Directors responsible for making policy decisions that advance the Agency’s mission. Five of the directors represent five divisions, while two are elected at-large representing the entire service area. Each director is elected for a four-year term. Elections are held in November of even-numbered years. The General Manager, appointed by the Board, directs the day-to-day operations of the Agency, implements Board policies, and advises the Board on Agency issues.

All properties within the Agency’s 225-square mile service area benefit from the Agency’s ability to import water from the California Aqueduct. When there is an insufficient supply of local groundwater available, local water companies and well owners use this imported water for domestic, agricultural, and industrial purposes. Taxes paid to the Agency pay the capital cost of facilities required to build the State Water Project and deliver water to the Agency’s service area.

Effective July 1, 2011 the Agency’s tax rate is $0.185 per $100 of assessed valuation. This means that if your property is valued at $200,000 the SGPWA tax is $370 per year. For a history of our tax rate, click here. This rate is set by the Board each year based on the debt service bill that we receive from the California Department of Water Resources.

Not directly. The Agency may be required to raise wholesale rates to local water companies in order to cover increases in water rates from the State or other increases in local costs. This may cause local water purveyors to raise their rates to cover the additional cost of purchasing water from the Agency. But the decision on whether or not to raise rates to the end user is made by the local water retailer, not the Agency. This decision may be based on a number of factors, including how much of the retailer’s water is purchased from the Agency.

The Agency sets an ad valorem tax rate to cover the cost of paying bonds on the State Water Project. In addition, the Agency receives a portion of the property taxes paid to the County. We also receive revenues from water sales and from interest on current funds. The Board of Directors is considering imposing a capacity fee, which would be a fee paid to the Agency for each new house or building constructed in our service area, to help pay for additional water and facilities that will be required once the construction is complete.

No.  The Agency is not a land use planning agency and hence does not approve general plans, specific plans, or building permits, and does not issue “will serve” letters. The Agency has no say in local development. The Agency does respond to growth, both actual and planned.  The Agency is taking active steps now to serve growth that is in the process of occurring or that is planned to occur in the near future (that is, has been approved or is in the process of being approve by local cities or the County).

Our biggest project is the completion of Phase 2 of the East Branch Extension, the pipeline that brings State Water Project to our region from the Sacramento/San Joaquin Delta.  Phase 1, completed in 2003, was built to take only half of the Agency’s allotment of 17,300 acre-feet per year from the State.  Phase 2, which will include new pipes, a new pump station, a new operational reservoir, and additional pumps to existing pump stations, is in final design and is anticipated to be online by 2013.  Most of the construction work associated with this project will be in the Mentone area. 

The Agency is also planning a new recharge facility in Noble Creek south of Brookside Avenue in the city of Beaumont.  This project will take delivery out of the East Branch Extension under Orchard Street in Cherry Valley, dump it in the County Flood Control District’s Mountain View Channel, and convey it to Noble Creek, where a series of low berms will enable it to soak into (recharge) the Beaumont groundwater basin.  This should be online in 2010.

The Agency is working with the City of Banning to construct an extension of the East Branch Extension, which currently ends in Cherry Valley, to the Banning City limits.  This pipeline is in final design.  The Agency’s board will vote whether to pay the funds to increase the size of this two and a half mile pipeline from 24-inches (needed by the City of Banning) to 36-inches (big enough for the City and the community of Cabazon) in 2010.

The Agency is also searching for additional water rights above our 17,300 acre-feet that we contracted for with the State.  We are pursuing several possible deals.  These additional water rights are critical in order to improve the reliability of our current supply, which is rated at only 63% reliable.

It is the job of the Agency and other local water retail agencies to ensure that the region does not run short of water. It is the responsibility of local retail water agencies to improve their local supplies, and it is the responsibility of the Agency to augment our supplemental water supplies as needed to meet current and future water demands. This will not be cheap; water rights in this day and age are very expensive but are available. Activities related to augmenting local supplies and supplemental supplies will cost local water agencies, including the Agency, tens of millions of dollars over the next few years, but these actions are critical to ensuring that our water supply is reliable enough to get us through drought years. The Agency is actively involved in water conservation and education efforts to help reduce the region’s water demands and make our current supplies go further.

The Agency contracted with the State of California for 17,300 acre-feet per year in 1962.  We currently have the ability to convey approximately half of this water to the region.  This 17,300 is only 63% reliable due to meteorological and environmental constraints.  This means that the 17,300 acre-feet (about 5.75 billion gallons) is actually only about 11,000 acre-feet (about 3.6 billion gallons) on a reliable basis.  This is why it is critical for the Agency to augment our supplemental water supplies.  The Agency is working on expanding our delivery system (East Branch Extension) so that we can import more water in wet years to get us through drier years.