SCH Number 2021090310

Project Info

Title

Inland Empire Utilities Agency Chino Basin Program

Description

The Chino Basin Program (CBP) was submitted for Proposition 1 – Water Storage Investment Program funding and was awarded $269M in conditional funding as of August 2025. Under the WSIP, the CBP is proposed to be a conjunctive use project that proposes to use advanced water purification to treat and store up to 15,000 acre-feet-per-year (AFY) of “new” water supply for a period of 25-years to provide for the State exchange, to be used in blocks of up to 50,000 AFY in hydrologically drier years when pulse flows in the Feather River would provide the most ecosystem benefit and other State Water Project (SWP) operations would not be affected. The exchange would be administered through agreements with the California Department of Water Resources (DWR), the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW), MWD, and other project partners. During the first 25 years of the Project life cycle (while the Proposition 1 WSIP water exchange commitment is fulfilled) locally produced CBP water supplies will directly replace a portion of imported supplies when an SWP water transfer is implemented by MWD and DWR and a pulse flow occurs in Northern California. After fulfillment of the Proposition 1 WSIP exchange commitment, the facilities developed under the CBP by IEUA would continue to be operationally viable as part of the overall project life cycle, and during this period the new water supply will be available for local use annually contributing to IEUA’s available supply. The CBP would increase additional available groundwater supplies in the adjudicated Chino Basin through increased water recycling that would result from operation of a new AWPF and through groundwater storage by operation of new injection wells. The CBP would thereby enable IEUA to exchange a commensurate amount of this “new” water locally generated by the proposed facilities to be used locally in order to enable State Water Project water to remain in Lake Oroville in Northern California that would otherwise be delivered to Southern California. The additional Lake Oroville water would subsequently be released in the form of pulse flows in the Feather River to improve habitat conditions for native salmonids and achieve environmental benefits. The CBP’s proposed AWPF, new injection and extraction facilities, conveyance facilities, and water system interconnections will allow more optimal management of local water supplies, including meeting water quality requirements for the continued use of recycled water within the Chino Basin, improved storage and recovery operations, as well as redundancies in water delivery infrastructure that will facilitate future rehabilitation and replacement of existing infrastructure. Furthermore, the data contained in the CBP RDPEIR is augmented by the analysis contained in the Final Pulse Flows Component of the Water Storage Investment Program Groundwater Projects Supplemental Environmental Impact Report (2024 DWR Pulse Flow FSEIR; SCH No. 2022080216) dated July 2024 prepared for the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) and prepared by ICF/ESA. This SEIR was circulated from February 16, 2024 to April 1, 2024, and the final document including responses to comments was completed in July 2024. The Pulse Flows Component is defined by the following DWR actions: (1) Release of the pulse flows from Lake Oroville into the Low Flow Channel of the Feather River, with the goal of improving habitat conditions for listed salmonids, as well as improving spawning and migration conditions for other listed and non-listed native fish species. (2) Implementation of the WSIP Operational Exchange Process that develops water used for pulse flow releases. (3) Diversion and conveyance of water to Kern Fan and Willow Springs that would be stored, in part, for ecosystem benefit. Implementation of the Pulse Flows Component would not require construction of any new facilities in addition to those previously analyzed in the three WSIP Groundwater Projects’ EIRs (including the 2022 CBP FPEIR and now the RDPEIR). Existing facilities would be used, with operations modified to support the pulse flow releases. The Pulse Flows Component study area analyzed in the FSEIR extends approximately 575 miles from Lake Oroville in Northern California to the WSIP Groundwater Projects in the San Joaquin Valley and Southern California. The 2024 DWR Pulse Flow FSEIR is presented as Subchapter 8.3 to the RDPEIR, and the information and analysis contained therein is incorporated by reference as part of the RDPEIR.

7 documents in project