Item 27 - Water Supply Assessment for Cabrillo Town Center Project

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Santa Ana 2020 Urban Water Management Plan arcadis.com 6-32 Cities of Costa Mesa, Fountain Valley, Garden Grove, Orange, Tustin, and Southern California Water Company. These connections can provide a total supply of 60,580 gpm into the City's distribution system. The MET connections are typically operating as constant flow sources. 6.8.2 Planned and Potential Exchanges and Transfers The City does not currently have plans to introduce new exchanges and transfers. However, MET continues to help its retail agencies develop transfer and exchange opportunities that promote reliability within their systems. Therefore, MET will look to help its retail agencies navigate the operational and administrative issues of transfers within the MET distribution system. In an indirect regional scale, the Santa Ana River Conservation and Conjunctive Use Project (SARCCUP) is a joint project established by five regional water agencies within the Santa Ana River Watershed (Eastern Municipal Water District, Inland Empire Utilities Agency, Western Municipal Water District, OCWD, and San Bernardino Valley Municipal Water District). In 2016, SARCCUP was successful in receiving $55 million in grant funds from Proposition 84 through DWR. The overall SARCCUP program awarded by Proposition 84, consists of three main program elements:  Watershed-Scale Cooperative Water Banking Program  Water Use Efficiency: Landscape Design and Irrigation Improvements and Water Budget Assistance for Agencies  Habitat Creation and Arundo Donax Removal from the Santa Ana River The Watershed-Scale Cooperative Water Banking Program is the largest component of SARCCUP and since 2016, Valley, MET, and the four SARCCUP-MWD Member Agencies, with MWDOC representing OCWD, have been discussing terms and conditions for the ability to purchase surplus water from Valley to be stored in the Santa Ana River watershed. With the Valley and MET surplus water purchase agreement due for renewal, it was the desire of Valley to establish a new agreement with MET that allows a portion of its surplus water to be stored within the Santa Ana River watershed. An agreement between MET and four SARCCUP-MWD Member Agencies was approved earlier this year that gives the SARCCUP agencies the ability to purchase a portion (up to 50%) of the surplus water that San Bernardino Valley Municipal Water District (Valley), a SWP Contractor, sells to MET. Such water will be stored in local groundwater basins throughout the Santa Ana River watershed and extract during dry years to reduce the impacts from multiyear droughts. In Orange County, 36,000 AF can be stored in the OC Basin for use during dry years. More importantly, this stored SARCCUP water can be categorized as “extraordinary supplies”, if used during a MET allocation, and can enhance a participating agencies’ reliability during a drought. Moreover, if excess water is available MWDOC can purchase additional water for its service area. Further details remain to be developed between OCWD, retail agencies, and MWDOC in how the water will be distributed in Orange County and who participates.