Cool Clear Water Bread may indeed be the staff of life, but without water we die. Without water this beautiful, blue marble would resemble the dry rugged terrain of the planet Mars -- and there would be no life animal or vegetable.
The high desert is struggling to acquire sufficient water to support even normal growth, and the Phelan/Pinon Hills Service area Zone L is no exception...indeed we are facing a greater problem than many other areas.
The first problem we need to face up to and acknowledge is the law. The law that the Department of Health and Human Services administers and enforces regarding storage capacities of water services.
It clearly stated in 2001 that Zone L must have minimum storage capacity of 7.8 MG (million gallons). In 2001 Zone L had a storage capacity of 6.6 MG.
The Report/recommendation To The Board Of Supervisors, San Bernardino County and Record Of Action #35 -- Dated Aug. 7, 2001 recommends requesting a grant from the California Energy Commission of $321,250 toward the construction of four 1 million gallon reservoirs at a cost of $2 million. The justification is a projected savings of $56,000 per year in cost of electricity to run well pumps.
The 200,000 gallon reservoirs 1-B, 1-C fill in the two off hours 10 p.m. to midnight. This causes the well pumps to be shut down during the off hours of midnight to six a.m., peak demand hours suck them dry. There is a substantial difference in the cost of electricity between peak load hours and off hours. Increased storage in these problem areas will produce the proposed saving in costs indicated in the proposal.
In 1999 our total pumping capacity was 4355 GPM (gallons per minute); however we only pumped 3142 AF (acre feet) of water...1,947 GPM indicating that the combination of down time and pump inefficiency brought the average pumping efficiency down to 45%. There is one other factor to be considered...our free water allocation from the MWA (Mojave Water Agency) is 1129 AF or 49,179,240 gallons per year. In 1999 we used 3,142 AF or 136,865,520 gallons. An over allocation of 2,013 AF.
Projected cost per AF after new wells and storage was completed at a cost of $3,450,000 is $360 per AF. Projected usage for 2001 through 2004 was 3,117 AF - 2005 through 2010 is 3.632 AF and 2010 through 2015 is 4,272 AF. If we don't get an increase in our free water allocation, we will be paying $1,131,480 per year in excess usage charges.
My conclusion is that in order to minimize our electricity costs and comply with Health and Human Services, we had to build the four 1 million gallon reservoirs, but after reading the future storage requirements for Zone L recorded in the Urban Water Management Plan April 2001; in which by the beginning of 2005 we had to increase our storage to 11.8 million gallons and to 15.9 million gallons by 2015, I'm afraid that we should come up with some sort of moratorium on growth and force the building contractors to pay a realistic premium based on our water storage needs.
The addition of the four 1 million gallon tanks at a cost of $3,450,000 gave us storage capacity of 10.7 million gallons and by 2015 we will have to add five and one-quarter more reservoirs and almost double our pumping capacity.

Now that the intelligent "?" voters decided to take control of our water supply, the cost for additional reservoirs won't be shared by the whole County of San Bernardino and we will have to pay the $4,527,238 when we are forced to build those 5 additional reservoirs in 2015. And who knows how much the pumping equipment will cost in 2015?