Inland Empire Water

A Look at the Inland Empire

• The Inland Empire has a semiarid, dry climate—this makes water a scarce resource in the region.
• About 2/3 of the Inland Empire’s water comes from outside of the region (from such places as the State Water Project and the Colorado River).
• Drought, low snowmelt runoff, and restrictions on water brought in from the State Water Project all make for a difficult situation when trying to deliver water to residents of the Inland Empire.

Chino Basin

• The Chino Basin is one of the dominant landscapes of the Inland Empire and continues to be one of the most important sources of water for the region (in fact, the Chino Basin is one of only two significant sources of in-region water—the other being the Santa Ana River Watershed).
• With hot summers and mild winters, the Chino Basin receives only 20 in. of rain per year.
• Groundwater defines the Chino Basin (leading to its other name, the Chino Groundwater Basin).
• The Chino GW Basin stretches over 235 square miles..

Inland Empire Utilities Agency

• The IEUA is the main agency responsible for delivering water to the region’s residents.
• The agency’s main focus is to get water from the Chino Basin as well as the Colorado River.
• It was formed in 1950 and serves over 800,000 people in eight different cities.
• The IEUA is a member of the larger Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which oversees many agencies across the southern portion of the state (Metropolitan serves 37 million residents and oversees an area of 5,200 sq. mi.).
• One of the main goals of the agency is to build up the supply of groundwater in the Chino Basin—they do this by storing water during wet weather for dry weather periods later on as well as recycle water by reclamation.

Eastern Municipal Water District

• The EMWD is another agency serving the Inland Empire water resource market.
• It covers 550 sq. mi. and serves 500,000 people in southwestern Riverside County.
• Five stations under the agency’s jurisdiction have worked toward improving reclamation.

Santa Ana River Watershed

• The Santa Ana River is a major supplier of water for Orange County; however, some of this water also goes to the watershed that serves many areas in the Inland Empire such as Riverside County

Legislation

• The Secretary of the Interior, along with Congress, have approved legislation allowing for further development in reclamation in the Chino GW Basin (a process of desalinization and recharged water).
• The main focus has been to decrease dependence on the Colorado River as a water source.
• The Water Management Initiative, an effort by a government agency named the Santa Ana Regional Water Quality Control Board, has been established to regulate what projects get priority funding to help with reclamation and desalinization.

Environmental Problems

• Agricultural Runoff has polluted some of the Groundwater in the Chino Basin—legislation has been passed in order to recharge it and recycle it into a much cleaner source of water.
• Composting and treatment plants are other, more minor ways that water managers have tried to help cure environmental problems in the region’s water

The future of water policy in the Inland Empire

• Improvements in desalinization would take major steps in helping future water policy; unfortunately, desalinization is a very costly process and might not be a realistic solution to water problems in the Inland Empire (The Chino Desalter Project was one exception and has put funds into researching desalinization in the area).
• Water managers will be forced to predict future water problems by looking at climate change critically.
• Agencies and managers must adapt to climate change to prevent drought in the arid Inland Empire.
• These same people must also look closely at the rapid population increase in the region, which will create a much larger demand to the dwindling supply of water.
• New developments and technologies will be key in deciding future water policy in the Inland Empire and some experts point to underground water basins yet to be discovered as the solution to dealing with climate change and population increase.