TEMECULA: Rancho Water discussing multiple water transfers
By: Aaron Calverie

The Rancho California Water District is looking to firm up its supply of water, a pressing concern despite the recent El Nino-related deluge, through a series of water transfers.

Board President Lisa Herman said she couldn't discuss the particulars of a recent closed-session discussion related to the transfers, but she said the district is always looking to keep its options open.

"Every district out there is scratching their heads, trying to figure out any options other than the obvious that are open to them," she said.

A legislative body such as the water district, which provides water service to 120,000 residents in Temecula, Wine Country, De Luz and a sliver of Murrieta, can discuss in private the purchase, sale, exchange or lease of real property ---- an unspecified amount of water in this case.

But, the same government code that allows that closed-door discussion also requires the district to identify the person or persons involved in the negotiations.

Meggan Reed, the district's spokeswoman, said the parties are the owners of large parcels of land in Southwest County. If or when a transfer agreement is signed, the details of that deal, which would involve rights to the water in aquifers underneath a particular piece of land, will be made public.

Typically, Reed said, these sorts of relatively small-scale transfers involve buying water for a higher price than what would be charged by large water agencies such as the Metropolitan Water District.

While that would make these sort of deals seem economically unwise, Metropolitan's water supply has been compromised by legal battles in Northern California and a judge's ruling that invalidated the "landmark" water transfer of 2003.

By firming up local supply, the district can scale back the amount of water it is buying from Metropolitan.

"We trying to diversify our portfolio of water supply," she said.

In recent years, the district has been buying about 60 percent of its water supply from MWD and other outside sources.

Reed said the timing of the board's discussion is not related to a recent settlement with the Pechanga Band of Luiseno Indians or the judge's recent ruling on the so-called 2003 farm-to-cities water transfer.

Both the tribe and the district draw water from aquifers in the Santa Margarita River basin ---- which stretches 750 square miles from Southwest County to northern San Diego County.

Under the settlement that was negotiated late last year, federal funding will used to make sure Pechanga has physical access to water supplies equal to the amount they were awarded in a mid-1960s federal court order called the "Fallbrook Decree." That total is about 5,000 acre-feet of water a year.

The district distributes about 76,000 acre-feet of water each year. An acre-foot is about 326,000 gallons, or what two families typically use in a year.