Sheep Creek Water Company won’t be digging new wells or digging themselves out of this moratorium anytime soon. The California Fish & Game Commission today decided to wait until at least August to decide on whether the western Joshua tree is an endangered species. Sheep Creek has been delaying drilling new wells out of hopes the commission would remove Joshua trees from consideration for being placed on the endangered list. The permits for Joshua tree mitigation have not been filed yet, and the costs to the company for dealing with the trees on the proposed properties is very high.
So we are talking months, at the very least, before Sheep Creek Water Company even makes an attempt at drilling on the Cambria and Nielson properties. That also means we are not close to the state ending the moratorium.
It should be pointed out that if the Board of Directors had authorized drilling these wells back before 2020, instead of trying to push for a consolidation that never happened, this wouldn’t be an issue now. September 2020 was the date the Fish & Game Commission made the western Joshua tree a candidate for the endangered species list, which trigger a higher level of protection for the trees.