Metropolitan Water District Program

Water Authority Partners with MWD

The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California’s (MWD) water comes from the Colorado River via the Colorado River Aqueduct and Northern California rivers via the State Water Project. The blend of the two sources fluctuates depending on hydrologic conditions and how MWD operates its system.

The last year San Diego County had a sufficient local supply of water to meet the demands of its growing population was 1946. Lacking adequate local water resources, the Water Authority joined the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California in late 1946 to gain a connection to the Colorado River to meet the needs of the post-war, booming San Diego region. As part of the requirements for annexation the San Diego region’s Colorado River water rights were transferred to MWD. In 1960, MWD threw its support behind the new State Water Project and received its first deliveries from the project in 1972.

MWD Board

MWD is governed by a 38-member Board of Directors, representing each of the District’s 26 member agencies. The Water Authority has four designated Delegates on MWD’s Board of Directors who represent the Water Authority’s interests at MWD and, as MWD Board members, govern the agency. In their capacity as MWD Board members, the Delegates host facility inspection tours.

Lois Fong-Sakai

Date Seated on Board: November 2021

Current MWD Committee Appointments:

Executive Committee – Secretary of the Board
Engineering and Operations Committee
Equity, Inclusion, and Affordability Committee
Ethics, Organization, and Personnel Committee
Finance and Asset Management Committee
One Water (Conservation & Local Resources) Committee
Audit Subcommittee of Executive Committee, Vice Chair
Subcommittee on Demand Management and Conservation Programs and Priorities
Subcommittee on Pure Water Southern California and Regional Conveyance
Subcommittee on Long‐Term Regional Planning Processes and Business Modeling

Biography:

Director Fong-Sakai joined the Water Authority Board in April 2015 representing the City of San Diego. She is a current member of the Water Authority Engineering and Operations, and the Imported Water committees. Fong-Sakai was past Chair and Vice Chair of the Engineering and Operations Committees, former Vice Chair of the Imported Water Committee, and a past member of Administrative and Finance and Water Planning Committee.

Fong-Sakai is a licensed civil engineer with substantial experience in water planning and policy. She served as the project manager and engineer for major water-related projects including the Fiesta Island Replacement Project, the University City Subsystem, and the Reclaimed Water Program. Fong-Sakai also contributed to white papers for the City of San Diego that formed the basis for pursuing water reclamation, reuse, and purification.

She is a long time San Diego community leader and an active member in many organizations, including Water for People, American Water Works Association, Society of Women Engineers, California Water Environment Association, Water Environment Association, the Asian Business Association National Charity League, Promises 2 Kids Foundation, LEAD San Diego, National Association of Parliamentarians, California State Association of Parliamentarians, City of Poway Oversight Board to the Successor Agency of the Poway—Redevelopment Agency, and Polinsky Children’s Center Advisory Board.

Fong-Sakai received both her Master of Science in Civil and Environmental Engineering and a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry from University of California Berkeley.

Marty Miller

Date Seated on Board: November 2021

Current MWD Committee Appointments:

Ad Hoc Committee on Colorado River, Chair
Ad Hoc Committee on Policy Impacts of Third Party Changes to Member Agency Boundaries, Chair
Engineering and Operations Committee
Finance and Asset Management Committee
Legal and Claims Committee
One Water and Stewardship Committee
Subcommittee on Demand Management and Conservation Programs and Priorities

Biography:

Marty Miller was appointed to the San Diego County Water Authority’s Board of Directors in 2011 representing the Vista Irrigation District, where he has been board president twice. Miller chairs the San Diego County Water Authority’s Imported Water Committee and the Labor Contract work group and is a member of its Engineering and Operations Committee and the Board Governance work group. Miller formerly chaired the Water Authority’s Administrative and Finance Committee, Engineering and Operations Committee, and Labor Negotiation work group. He also served on the San Vicente Energy task force, San Vicente Project Negotiations work group, and Small Contractor Outreach and Opportunities Program.

Miller has owned a commercial construction company for the past 45 years. He is a member and former president of the Vista Optimist Club and a member of the Rancho Buena Vista Little League Board. Miller has a long coaching career that includes leading Vista’s Little League baseball team to second place at the Little League World Series in 2005. He graduated from the College of Southern Idaho with a degree in architectural drafting.

S. Gail Goldberg

Date Seated on Board: March 2019

Current MWD Committee Appointments:

Executive Committee – Vice Chair of the Board for Finance, Audit and Planning
One Water and Stewardship Committee
Ad Hoc Subcommittee on Equal Employment Opportunity Investigations

Biography:

In 2019, Director Goldberg was appointed by the Water Authority Board to serve as one of its Delegates to MWD.

She retired in 2018 after eight years as the Executive Director of the Urban Land Institute – Los Angeles. Ms. Goldberg brought to the table not only her many years leading the planning departments of two of the world’s most significant cities, but also many years of service to ULI.

Goldberg was Director of Los Angeles City Planning Department from 2006 through 2010. She was responsible for organizing and directing the policies and activities of the City Planning Department, including the development, maintenance and implementation of all elements of the city’s General Plan as well as a range of other special zoning plans.

Prior to joining the Los Angeles City Planning Department, Goldberg worked for 17 years in the San Diego City Planning Department, serving as Planning Director from 2001 through 2005. She oversaw a planning process to update the city’s 20-year-old General Plan. The result – which became an international model for urban revitalization – was a 20-year vision for the San Diego and a long-term strategy for achieving that vision known as the “City of Villages.”

Goldberg is a native Californian and holds a degree in Urban Studies and Planning from the University of California San Diego and is a Fellow of the American Institute of Certified Planners. Goldberg currently serves on the Board of Advisors for the USC Center for Sustainable Cities and the USC Price School Master of Planning Program. She also serves on the Advisory Board for the University of California’s District 9 Transportation Center.

Goldberg has formerly served as an Urban Land Institute Trustee, one of two public members on the State Strategic Growth Council, Chair of the San Diego/Tijuana ULI District Council and on the Statewide Coordinating Committee for the Urban Land Institute’s California Smart Growth Initiative. She is a past President of the San Diego Chapter of the Lambda Alpha Honorary Land Economics Society.

Mel Katz

Date Seated on Board: January 2025

Biography:

Director Mel Katz joined the Water Authority Board in March 2018, representing the City of Del Mar. He most recently has served on the Board’s Legislation and Public Outreach Committee, the Administrative and Finance Committee, the Project Labor Agreement Work Group, the Labor Negotiations Work Group, and the Financial Strategy Work Group. He also represents the Water Authority at the San Diego Association of Governments.

Director Katz brings a wealth of civic and business experience to the Water Authority as an executive board member of The San Diego Foundation, a board member of the San Diego Rotary Foundation and a former chair of the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce,
among several other posts. He also is the executive officer of Manpower San Diego, which has been in business for 45 years. The company is a leading workforce solutions provider and one of the region’s largest for-profit employers.

Relationship With MWD

Delivery Agreement

To improve the region’s water reliability, the Water Authority launched its diversification effort in the late 1990s. In 2003, as part of the Quantification Settlement Agreement, the Water Authority began receiving its independently obtained Colorado River supplies through water conservation and transfer agreements. The Water Authority pays MWD to transport these independent supplies to San Diego County through a delivery agreement in addition to paying for its MWD supply purchases. While the Water Authority still purchases Colorado River and State Water Project water from MWD, the Water Authority launched its diversification effort in the late 1990s to improve the region’s water reliability.

Water Supply

The Metropolitan Water District Act legally entitles each member agency to a preferential right to purchase a certain amount of MWD’s supplies. Under Section 135, each MWD member agency has a preferential right to a percentage of MWD’s available water supplies based on the member’s past payments toward MWD’s capital and operating costs, excluding payments for water purchases. As of June 30, 2020, the Water Authority has preferential right to 27.89% of MWD’s water supply. (Preferential rights are updated annually.) For comparison, in fiscal year 2023, the Water Authority purchased about 7.3% of the water MWD sold.

As part of rulings on landmark litigation that was initiated in 2010, courts found that MWD under-calculated the Water Authority’s statutory water right, or preferential right to MWD water. As a result of the recalculation, the Water Authority’s preferential right to MWD water increased by approximately 100,000 acre-feet of additional MWD water annually – about twice the production of the $1 billion Claude “Bud” Lewis Carlsbad Seawater Desalination Plant. This same litigation also resulted in savings of $45 million since the court also found that MWD illegally charged “water stewardship” fees on its transportation rates from 2011-2014. Ultimately, this litigation has yielded several benefits for San Diego County ratepayers. “San Diego prevailed, and the judgment not only benefits its own ratepayers but all of the nearly 19 million people in Metropolitan’s service area because enforcing cost-of-service principles serves the interests of all ratepayers,” said Superior Court Judge Anne-Christine Massullo in her Jan. 13, 2021 order, which MWD is appealing.

Policy

As MWD’s largest financial contributor, the Water Authority promotes policies at MWD that embrace transparent governance and fiscal responsibility, create equity among MWD member agencies, and facilitate the efficient and optimal use of resources. The Water Authority’s MWD Program advises the agency’s Board officers and MWD Delegates in developing and implementing strategies to achieve the Water Authority’s water resiliency and fiscal goals at MWD.

The MWD Program staff works closely with other Water Authority departments to analyze MWD programs and policies and their impacts on the Water Authority’s management strategies and operations. Program staff also collaborates with MWD board members, MWD member agencies and other stakeholders to advance the Water Authority’s positions at MWD.

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