In 2018 Sheep Creek Water Company finished Well #11, which is located north of Phelan Rd. and east of Johnson Rd.\u00a0 Because this well is located outside of where we have water rights, Sheep Creek is required to pay the Mojave Water Agency (MWA) for any water it pumps.\u00a0 In 2018, the MWA fee was $635 per acre foot, which translates to approximately $1.46 per hundred cubic foot of water (hcf).\u00a0 This well is where the monthly Tier 2 allocation per share comes from – the cost of Tier 2 is higher than Tier 1, and includes the MWA fee, as well as extra costs for electricity and well maintenance.<\/p>\n
Because Sheep Creek Water Company is required to produce water at cost to shareholders, as a not-for-profit mutual water company, the rates that went into effect in September of 2018 showed all the assocated costs for Tier 2.\u00a0 Those rates were as follows:\u00a0 $0.75 per hcf for well maintenance, $1.25 per hcf for electricity, and $1.46 per hcf for MWA fees.\u00a0 The overall rate for water from Well #11 was $3.46 per hcf.\u00a0 In January of 2023 the Tier 2 rate was raised to $4.50 per hcf, but without the cost breakdown available in 2018.<\/p>\n
Sheep Creek Water Company publishes monthly production and usage reports that are part of the agenda for Board of Director meetings.\u00a0 In these reports they list the amount of MWA fees collected, and the overall well maintenance fees collected (that includes $0.25 per hcf for the Wrightwood well field and the tunnel).\u00a0 These reports also show how much water is produced from Well #11 every month.\u00a0 I have broken out the production and usage reports, and they can be downloaded here:\u00a0 Tier 2 Production and Charges<\/a>.<\/p>\n A ltitle deep reading of the usage and production shows that every year Tier 2 usage is higher than Well #11 production.\u00a0 The Tier 2 water that doesn’t come from Well #11 is drawn from the Wrightwood well field, where it’s cheaper to produce and Sheep Creek doesn’t have to pay MWA fees.\u00a0 In 2019, 52% of Tier 2 water came from Wrightwood, in 2020 70%, in 2021 52%, in 2022 41%, and so far in 2023 99% of Tier 2 water has come from the Wrightwood well field.<\/p>\n Despite drawing water from the significantly cheaper wells in Wrightwood ($0.55 per hcf instead of $4.50 per hcf), Sheep Creek Water Company continues to charge full price for Tier 2 water.\u00a0 Over the past 5 years, Sheep Creek customers have paid a combined $212,532.28 in MWA fees for Tier 2 usage, but Sheep Creek has owed the MWA only $84,372.45 for water produced from Well #11.\u00a0 Those numbers don’t include the extra charges for electricity and well maintenance built into Tier 2 but not required for Tier 1 production.\u00a0 The issue is most egregious this year, where virtually all Tier 2 water has come from the Wrightwood wells and the tunnel.\u00a0 So far in 2023, Sheep Creek owes the MWA $361.95 but has collected $32,923.26 in MWA fees.<\/p>\n It is difficult to reconcile these numbers with Sheep Creek Water Company’s requirement to produce water “at cost”.\u00a0 If the water is being pulled from the Wrightwood well field and the tunnel, customers should be refunded the excess Tier 2 costs over and above the cost of turning on Well #11 every other month or so to keep it ready to pump.<\/p>\n Under the California Public Utilities Code Section 2705, mutual water companies that provide water at cost are not regulated by the California Public Utilities Commission.\u00a0 If Sheep Creek Water Company is not providing this water “at cost” they could be in danger of violating this section, and fall under regulation of the CPUC.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In 2018 Sheep Creek Water Company finished Well #11, which is located north of Phelan Rd. and east of Johnson Rd.\u00a0 Because this well is located outside of where we have water rights, Sheep Creek is required to pay the Mojave Water Agency (MWA) for any water it pumps.\u00a0 In 2018, the MWA fee was…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-406","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sheepcreeknews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scwcshareholders.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scwcshareholders.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scwcshareholders.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scwcshareholders.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scwcshareholders.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=406"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/scwcshareholders.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":411,"href":"https:\/\/scwcshareholders.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406\/revisions\/411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scwcshareholders.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scwcshareholders.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scwcshareholders.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}