paving the way for using fees to manage basins effectively,” according to the UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences. The plaintiffs sued the water agency because of its pumping fee, which had been implemented to reduce overdraft and prevent salinity intrusion. On appeal, the court ruled that ground- water management provides a service for the basin as a whole and that this legally can include charging all pump- ers to fund activities such as recharging the basin with recycled wastewater or captured stormwater – even if this re- charge is not evenly distributed around the basin.


“This ruling, which now is the controlling case on this issue, sets a good precedent and validates the practices of those agencies that have been charging fees to all users to cover basin management costs,” the UC Davis blog post says.


Going With the Flow: Growth in Riverside County It takes water to fuel growth in the region served by the Eastern Municipal Water District (EMWD) in Riverside County and that means opening the checkbook to pay for multimillion dollar expenditures. Specifi cally, that means a $222 million expansion of the Perris Valley Regional Water Reclamation Facility, the largest capital improvement project in the district’s 64-year history. The result is a treatment plant that will have the capacity to process 22 million gallons each day, an important amount in a region where recycled water accounts for a quarter of the district’s water supply – irrigating golf courses, parks, farmland, public land- scaping and school fi elds.


Planning for and implementing infrastructure needs means staying ahead of the growth curve, said Charles Turner, EMWD’s director of fi nance. The district’s service area has ex- perienced signifi cant growth and a few slowdowns in the last 25 years, meaning several capital improvement programs have been developed “so that growth is not impeded,” Turner said.


May/June 2014


“We have had periods of fi ve to 10 percent growth in connections each year,” he said.


Costs for the main projects, such as the treatment plant expansion, “are signifi cant and they are multiyear,” said Turner, noting that “the key is knowing how far in advance we need to build capacity for future growth.” From there, the district draws capital improvement outlays, factoring existing funding streams for opera- tions, and “system betterment,” both of which account for about 30 percent of anticipated spending. The rest is for expansion to accommodate the future capacity that’s needed for growth. Paying for that is done through new connection fees.


The district issues bonds to have the cash in hand to account for growth, though “our preference is not to have to bond for it but to fi nd someone else to pay,” Turner said.


That is accomplished through grants and loans, which are available to support new water supply proj- ects, which in EMWD’s case means desalinating brackish groundwater and producing recycled water. When those funding sources are not available “yet we know we need to have [more] capacity available for our customers, that’s when we go out and borrow from Wall Street,” Turner said.


The district issued a bond in 2008 for expansion, including completion of the reclamation facility. Rates have been gradually raised to pay off the debt and to build up funding for necessary expansion projects. “Our main fi nancial planning objective is to maintain stable and reli- able rates, to preserve suffi cient reserves such that we can anticipate any emer- gencies or any future needs … and to have strong credit that ensures we can continue to borrow funds to pay for any future fi nancing needs,” Turner said. The district has a four-tiered rate


schedule that’s been “very successful … and is one of the best tools to use for water conservation,” Turner said. “Basically, instead of telling people how much water they should use, it’s


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“[I]nstead of telling people how much water they should use, it’s kind of the opposite. We say, ‘Let’s give you a budget, what we think is a reasonable amount – we’re not go ing to say you can’t use more, we’re just saying if you do use more we are going to charge you a little more for it.’”


– Charles Turner, Eastern Municipal Water District


Hear more from Eastern Municipal Water District’s Charles Turner


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