Page 28 - Beaumont Basin Watermaster

Section 3
Status of the Basin and Administration of the Judgment

available for transfer from their storage account. As part of the agreement, each year the
SMWC estimates the amount of water available for transfer and offers it to the BCVWD for
purchase prior to offering it to other Appropriators. Since the beginning of the agreement,
SMWC has transferred 9,500 ac-ft of water to BCVWD with 3,500 ac-ft transferred in CY
2011. SMWC also transferred 1,500 ac-ft of water to Banning in 2007. The purchase
agreements and transfers between these agencies are on file with Watermaster. Water
transfers between Appropriators were not reported during CY 2012 and CY 2013.

3.4.2 Transfers of Overlying Rights for Service by an Appropriator

The Judgment, under Part III, Paragraph 3, provides that to the extent an Overlying Party
request water service from an Appropriator Party, and uses its adjudicated water rights to
obtain said service; an equivalent volume of groundwater shall be reserved for the
Appropriator Party providing the service to the Overlying Party. Further, Section 7 of the
Rules and Regulations indicates that both the Overlying and Appropriator will file a Notice of
Adjustments of Rights with Watermaster within 30 days after entering a service agreement.

The BCVWD has given verbal notification to Watermaster that is providing potable service to
certain Overlying Parties; however, formal notification by either party for the adjustment of
water rights has not been received by Watermaster. A formal notification will be required to
complete the transfer of water rights from one or more Overlying Producers to BCVWD; the
notification should be retroactive to the time service began. Upon formal completion of the
transfer, Watermaster will be required to recalculate the allocation of unused Overlying Water
to the Appropriators, as documented in Section 7 of the Rules and Regulations.

In early 2013, BCVWD provided detailed documentation of all the parcels now served by the
District that were previously owned by Overlying Users including parcels owned by Oak
Valley Partners, Southern California PGA, and Plantation on the Lake. The accounting of
this information has been challenged by the Morongo Band of Mission Indians representatives.
As of the time of this writing, the accuracy of the information has not been corroborated and it is
therefore not included in this report.

3.4.3 Allocation of Unused Overlying Water
Section 7.8 of the Rules and Regulations, adopted on September 9, 2009, by Watermaster,
outlines the process for distributing the volume of adjudicated water not produced by the
Overlying Parties to the Appropriators. Under this section, if an Overlying Party produces
less than five times of their share of the safe yield in any five-year period, the quantity of
groundwater not produced by that Overlying Party shall be made available for allocation to
the Appropriators. Transferring of unused production from Overlying Users does not diminish
their legal right to produce in subsequent years.

Since the inception of the Judgment, transfers of unused production by Overlying Users has
been made on a fiscal year basis coinciding with the preparation of the annual report.
Preparing the annual report on a calendar year basis requires that the transfers of unused
production also be made on the same basis. Based on the five-year format used in the Rules
and Regulations, transfers to the Appropriator Parties for CY 2013 were based on unused

Beaumont Basin Watermaster 2013 Annual Report – DRAFT August 2014 3-8