Rancho Water advances UWMP amid board skepticism over imported supply reliability

Rancho Water advances UWMP amid board skepticism over imported supply reliabilityWhile state-mandated planning documents show adequate long-term water supplies, district directors are prioritizing local groundwater expansion to hedge against potential shortfalls from the Colorado River and the Delta.

The board advanced the 2025 Urban Water Management Plan (UWMP) and Water Shortage Contingency Plan to a June 11 public hearing.

Directors expressed heavy skepticism regarding the Metropolitan Water District's (MWD) projected supply reliability, citing persistent drought risks on the Colorado River.

The district is expanding its Mid-Valley groundwater bank, expected online by 2030, to provide a 4,000 acre-foot supply margin during a five-year drought.

Rancho Water is currently executing $55 million in capital projects, including four new production wells at the Upper Valle de los Caballos (UVDC) site.

The Rancho California Water District board of directors has approved advancing its 2025 Urban Water Management Plan (UWMP) to a June 11 public hearing, but not without heavy criticism of state-mandated assumptions regarding imported water reliability. During an April 30 committee meeting, staff presented the draft UWMP, prepared alongside consultant Kennedy Jenks. The plan documents that the district has adequate supplies for normal, single-dry, and five-consecutive-year droughts through 2050. Total water use for 2025 was approximately 66,000 acre-feet, which included 6,000 acre-feet placed into long-term storage. Despite the positive projections, board members openly questioned the reliability of imported supplies from the Metropolitan Water District (MWD). One director noted the lack of discussion regarding potential disaster on the Colorado River, warning that low levels at Lake Mead could severely restrict future deliveries. "We're basically—Metropolitan's lying to us. We know they're lying to us. And we're just going to say... we're going to put it in here anyway, just because we're checking the box for the state," a director remarked during the meeting. District staff acknowledged the "disconnect between what's asked of us of the state and what we can anticipate," framing the UWMP as a regulatory framework rather than a guaranteed action plan. To secure actual reliability, the district is aggressively expanding its local groundwater capabilities. The district's enhanced Mid-Valley groundwater bank is scheduled to come online by 2030. According to staff modeling, this expansion will provide a 4,000 acre-foot supply margin even in the fifth year of a drought by 2050. By comparison, the district's 2020 planning cycle projected a margin of just 111 acre-feet under similar conditions. To support this pivot toward local supply, Rancho Water is concurrently executing $55 million in active construction projects. This includes the Upper Valle de los Caballos (UVDC) project, which features four new production wells, a pump station, and a hydroelectric facility. Staff reported that one of the new wells, Well 175, initially yielded only 400 gallons per minute (gpm) compared to the 1,600 gpm target. In response, operations crews rapidly built a makeshift recharge pond to improve local infiltration, increasing the recharge rate to four feet per day while borehole testing continues. The committee also advanced the 2026 Water Shortage Contingency Plan to the June 11 hearing. The updated plan introduces drought rate tables designed to be "Prop 218-proof" ahead of a future cost-of-service study, and incorporates a state-mandated prohibition on the use of potable water for non-functional turf starting in 2027.