We Are Already Paying for Greenspot. The Question Is Whether We Ever Get It.

A note on what this is. I am a candidate for the Big Bear City Community Services District board, I sit on the Big Bear Area Regional Wastewater Agency board representing County Service Area 53B, and I own and operate bigbear.news, where this letter appears. My seat is how I knew where to look. Everything below comes from public documents, numbered and linked at the end. My water comes from the Big Bear Lake Department of Water and Power, as it does for much of the east end; my sewer and trash service come from the CSD, so these rates are on my bill too. This is my personal opinion as a candidate, not the position of BBARWA, its board, or its staff, and no one there has reviewed it. Letters on this site are opinion, not reporting, and this one is mine. If I have gotten something wrong, tell me and I will correct it publicly.

The short version.

• You are already paying for Greenspot. The 18 percent sewer increase this July, and the two behind it, were adopted to make room for a loan the board has not approved. Both CSD appointees voted for those rates, twice.
• The same two directors have voted no on the loan, on collecting grant money already awarded, and on design, without saying in public what it would take to get a yes.
• Nobody can tell you the real cost until it goes to bid, and it cannot go to bid without construction funding. That is the loop we have been in for a year.
• Approving the loan builds nothing. Drawing a dollar takes a construction award, and that takes four of five votes. Two directors keep the veto either way.
• Thirty-one percent of the cost is grant money that goes away if this board looks unable to govern the project.
• This is the district's water too. The agency's own model says the recharged water is pumped out by existing CSD wells in the area, and Well 8A — which replaced Well 8 and came online last year — sits less than two miles from the recharge site.
• I support the project. Write the board and ask the two no votes one question, on the record: what would it take?

Let me be direct about where I stand. I support the Greenspot Recharge Project. Is it perfect? No. Would I have designed it differently? Yes. Is it the thing in front of us that keeps our water on this mountain? Yes.

The rates are already adopted, including the ones nobody has mentioned yet

Here is how the money works. BBARWA sets a sewer user charge. The CSD collects it from its customers and remits it. The agency adopts the charge on a rolling five-year schedule and re-adopts it each spring with the coming year's budget, so the schedule you are living under has been voted on more than once.

And Replenish Big Bear has been inside that charge for some time. In January 2023 the board took out a $3.4 million bridge loan for the project, with interest paid from reserves collected from ratepayers for that purpose. The agency's own rate report describes a portion of your sewer fees as funding Replenish Big Bear "debt service and required reserves," including "future project funding, such as the WIFIA Loan." [2]

On March 26, 2025, the board adopted a five-year schedule and the budget built on it. Unanimous: Herrick, Miller, Russo, Walsh, Segovia. Both of the CSD's appointees, Directors Russo and Walsh, voted yes. [1]

On March 25, 2026, the board re-adopted the same numbers. Resolution R. 04-2026 set the schedule: 18 percent increases in fiscal 2027, 2028 and 2029, then 6 percent and 4 percent. Resolution R. 06-2026 adopted the budget built on it. Both unanimous. Herrick, Russo, Sauer, Segovia, Walsh. Director Miller had held the county seat I now hold. [3] I voted for those rates, and I will not pretend otherwise. I voted for them because I support the project they were built to carry. The staff report says what the increases are for: they "have been structured to meet the Agency's operating and capital needs, and include expenses associated with Replenish Big Bear." [4]

The first of those three increases took effect July 1, 2026. The base charge went from $378.20 per equivalent dwelling unit to $446.27. [2][4]

Be clear about what those increases do and do not cover. The agency's financing plan says they were calculated to provide capacity for roughly $4 million a year in future debt payments. [5] The same budget that adopted them says the rate structure "is sufficient to complete final design" and that the construction costs themselves are not yet in it, because there is no approved construction funding to put in. [4] The advisor projects roughly $756 per unit by 2036, sized to carry about $4.2 million a year in debt payments from 2031 to final maturity. [5]

Nobody should pretend that is small. But it is not a new ask, and it did not happen to you without a vote. Both CSD directors voted for this rate path twice, a year apart.

What they have not voted for is the loan those rates were built to make room for.

The vote record

On August 27, 2025, five months after the first rate vote, the board was asked to approve a $50.6 million WIFIA loan. Ayes: Herrick, Miller, Segovia. Noes: Russo and Walsh. The motion did not pass, because a loan of this size needs four of five votes. [6]

On February 25, 2026, the board voted to authorize a Title XVI grant reimbursement request. It passed 3 to 2. Noes: Russo and Walsh. [7]

On July 29, 2026, the board authorized $3.44 million in design and program management work in two votes. Both passed 3 to 2. Noes, both times: Russo and Walsh. [8]

And in between, the project was redesigned around their objections. At the April 2026 workshop, the board's own survey showed directors did not believe the Stanfield Marsh discharge location was fair to the agency they represent, and were split on the water allocation. So the project moved to Greenspot, the scope shrank from about $105 million to $88.6 million, and under the Greenspot configuration the allocation question disappears, because the CSD and the Department of Water and Power would both draw from the same recharged basin. [9] The equity complaint was heard and the project was rebuilt to answer it.

Then the answer got voted down anyway.

So here is the record of the two CSD appointees. March 2025: yes on rates. August 2025: no on the loan, and the loan failed. February 2026: no on collecting awarded grant money, though it passed without them. March 2026: yes on rates again, with two more 18 percent increases inside. June 2026: yes on buying the Greenspot land, unanimous. July 2026: no on design, which also passed without them. What changed between March and August of 2025, and what would it take now?

If there is a substantive answer, it belongs on the record, in public, before this board votes on the loan again. Here is where that stands. On August 26, staff presented the updated financing plan and asked the board to direct them to bring the WIFIA loan back for reconsideration. [5] The general manager was plain about why he was asking that way: reopening the loan costs the agency money, and approving it takes four of five votes, so he wanted a four-of-five signal on the financing package before spending it. I was in the room. The direction passed 3 to 2, with Directors Russo and Walsh voting no, and without four votes staff are not bringing the loan back. The agency's August report had listed reconsideration as a September milestone, [13] and the September 23 regular meeting was adjourned. [10] So the question is still open. This board needs four of five votes to build anything. The two CSD appointees have not said in public what it would take to get a yes. That is fixable, by naming it.

You cannot get a real number without the money to go to bid

Director Walsh has made a point from the dais that I think is correct: nobody can tell you what this project will actually cost until contractors bid it.

He is right. The $88.6 million is a planning-level estimate with an accuracy range of 15 percent under to 25 percent over. [9] It could come in cheaper. Construction pricing in this state says otherwise. Every year we spend deciding is a year of escalation we pay for later.

Here is the trap. We cannot go to bid without construction funding in place. The agency said so in writing in September 2025: "There is currently no funding in place for the construction of the Project; therefore, it cannot be bid for construction once the final design is complete." [11]

It is worse than that. Because construction funding is not secured, staff have already deferred the design work that would sharpen the estimate. Equipment pre-selection is on hold, because vendors typically will not engage without "a reasonable expectation of construction." Easement negotiations and permitting are on hold for the same reason. [12]

So the loan is the lever that produces the number Director Walsh says he wants. When it was in front of him and Director Russo in August 2025, they voted no. [6] When staff asked on August 26 of this year for the four-vote signal that would let them bring it back, they voted no again. The question is whether they will ever vote to authorize the one step that produces the number.

We have spent millions of ratepayer dollars getting toward a number, and we are refusing the one thing that lets us finish getting it. That is not fiscal caution. It is a loop, and we have been going around it for a year.

The way out is available. Directors can vote for the financing package while keeping every reservation they have about the project, because closing the loan does not build anything. I will show why in a moment.

One related point, because it belongs in the same ledger. The agency bought the 20-acre parcel at 2190 State Lane in June 2026 for $865,000. I sit on that board, and the vote to buy it was unanimous, mine included. [13][15] Directors Russo and Walsh voted yes on the land. They have voted no on the loan, on collecting the grants, and on the design.

Approving the loan is not approving the spending

The common objection is that closing this loan hands staff a blank check. It does not.

You will hear the year 2064, and it is real. The loan the board declined in 2025 ran to a May 2064 maturity, the way a 35-year federal loan does. [2] Here is what that year does and does not commit you to. Interest accrues only on money actually drawn, and no dollar can be drawn until a construction contract is awarded, which takes four of five directors, the same supermajority that stopped this loan in the first place. Staff have also committed not to request a draw before award, and the draw request comes back to the board for its own vote. [5] Any two directors keep a veto over ever turning a shovel. The signature is on the financing. The shovel is a separate vote, and it stays yours.

Closing also does work that waiting does not. The rate fixes at closing as a ceiling, with a one-time reset if rates fall, and we keep that reset only until the first dollar is drawn or the project passes 51 percent complete. [5]

And waiting has a price we can already measure. In August 2025, when this board declined the loan, the quoted rate was 4.83 percent. [2] By July 2026 it was 5.15 to 5.20. [5] On roughly $49 million paid down over 35 years, that third of a point is roughly $4.5 million in extra interest. [14] One year of hesitation cost more than five times what the agency paid for the Greenspot land.

There are real obligations on the yes side, and I am not going to hide them. A WIFIA loan carries a covenant requiring the agency to set rates covering 110 percent of debt service. Projected coverage stays above 200 percent into the 2040s and then declines toward that floor, on an assumption of 5 percent annual growth in operating costs, and the advisor says plainly that material cost changes will require the plan to be redone. [5] Those are reasons to insist on updated estimates at every design milestone and to hold the four-fifths line at construction award. They are not reasons to walk away from the financing.

Thirty-one percent of this is somebody else's money

BBARWA has secured $26.9 million in grants for this project, 31 percent of the total cost by the agency's own financing plan. It is in that plan as a line item, not a hope: federal Title XVI, federal STAG, and state Proposition 1 funds, stacked over years of applications by a very small agency. [5] When the valley's own 2016 planning study looked at paying for a recycled water project, the state program it examined offered 35 percent grants capped at $15 million. [16] BBARWA has assembled nearly twice that cap. For an agency our size, that is remarkable.

And other people's money does not wait. Earlier this year the Bureau of Reclamation returned one of the agency's progress reports over concerns that the project "lacked demonstrated Governing Board and community support and did not appear to be advancing." Staff revised the report, Reclamation indicated the concerns were addressed, and the first reimbursement arrived in June. Then, because the project's scope had changed to Greenspot, Reclamation suspended further reimbursements until it reviews the feasibility study and amends the grant. [15] Read that sequence for what it is. The federal government is watching whether this board supports the project it applied for, and it has already said so once in writing. Of the $26.9 million awarded, about $5.9 million has actually been reimbursed, and nothing yet for Greenspot. [13] Every one of those dollars is conditional on this valley showing it can govern the project it applied for.

Which makes the February 25 vote worth knowing about: when the board authorized a Title XVI reimbursement request, Directors Russo and Walsh voted no. [7] I do not know their reasoning and I am not going to invent one. But a vote against collecting grant money the agency has already been awarded is a hard thing to explain to a ratepayer facing an 18 percent increase.

If we let this stack collapse, we do not go back to a cheaper project. We go back to the same project, minus 31 percent, funded entirely by the people reading this.

Eleven years of Stage 2

Big Bear Valley runs entirely on the water under our own feet. The CSD's own website puts it plainly: "we are totally self dependent and we do not have any connections with water down the hill." [17]

The Bear Valley Sustainability Study, which the CSD helped fund and hosts on its own website, states that local groundwater is the sole drinking water supply and that the region faces "drought conditions and a long-term decline in precipitation trends." [16] Our electric utility says the same thing in the wildfire mitigation plan it files with the state: Bear Valley "is experiencing a steady decline in precipitation," and it charts it year by year. [18]

That is not one bad winter. It is a direction. If it continues and we start this project in twenty years instead of now, we will have spent twenty of the years we had left arguing about it. What is a home worth in a valley that cannot guarantee water? Nobody puts that on a ballot argument, but it is the actual stake.

We are already living in the answer. CSD customers have been under mandatory Stage 2 water restrictions since May 2015. Designated watering days. No sprinklers between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m. No turf irrigation from November through March. Limits on how much lawn you can plant. [19] Eleven years. It has become background noise precisely because it never goes away, and that is the problem. We have quietly accepted a rationed supply as the ordinary condition of living here.

If the objection to putting water back into a dropping aquifer is that it costs too much, that is not fiscal conservatism. That is choosing to have less water. One wet winter does not change it. We are making a fifty-year decision. It should rest on fifty years of data, not the forecast.

We should keep our water on this mountain

Every day this valley pumps its treated wastewater down the hill to Lucerne Valley through a 16-mile pipeline constructed in the 1970s. [12] In June 2024 the general manager told the valley's groundwater agency board that the line "should be good for at least 50 years," that a section of it is currently exposed, and that replacing it fully would cost approximately $80 million. [26] The agency is spending about $1.7 million across this year and next investigating the condition of that line. [20]

Think about what we are doing. We take the only water this valley has, treat it, and send it off the mountain to irrigate crops in someone else's basin. It feels like a fact of nature. It is a permit. At that same 2024 meeting, the agency's engineer said that permits requiring only secondary treatment "will most likely be phased out and that further treatments will most likely be required in the future." [26] The valley's own 2016 planning study says it more cautiously: no near-term change is expected, but treatment requirements "will become more stringent in the future." [16] And I doubt California in 2026 would approve a brand new arrangement to export a mountain community's sole supply out of its watershed. Roughly $33.6 million of this project is treatment plant upgrades, [9] and the agency's own budget says its construction costs include improvements "that will need to be completed regardless of the completion of" Replenish Big Bear. [4] The only question is whether we build them now, inside a system that keeps the water here, with a third of the cost paid by grants and the balance at a federal 35-year rate, or later, alone, with no grants, on somebody else's compliance deadline.

There is no aqueduct coming, and none of the water the rest of Southern California is fighting over was ever coming to us.

Roughly 500 acre-feet a year, about what 2,700 households here use, put back into our own basin instead of shipped down the hill. [9][22] That is what is on the table.

One valley, twelve miles long

To the argument that this project is really for the west end, for the hotels and resorts: this valley is twelve miles end to end, by its own planning study's measure, home to about 17,000 year-round residents, [16][27] and we behave as though it were two countries.

The east end does not have a separate water table, a separate fire season, or a separate economy.

I will represent the east end hard. I live here. But I will not run a district that treats the other end of a twelve-mile valley as a foreign power. That is a choice, and we can unmake it.

What the CSD's own Water Master Plan actually says

An argument is circulating that the CSD should pay nothing toward Greenspot, and it leans on the district's 2018 Water Master Plan. The short version: the CSD owns one well in the Erwin Basin, Well 2; Well 2 is old, produces sand, and runs only at peak; the plan says it will be abandoned; therefore the CSD gets nothing and should fund nothing.

I read the plan. [23] Here is what it says.

Well 2 being replaced is not news. It was drilled in 1958. The plan puts the useful life of the district's vertical wells at 50 to 85 years, and its Executive Summary states that "Wells 1, 1B, and 2 were also identified as being close to exceeding their useful life and should also be abandoned and replaced to improve performance and water production." A 1958 well on a 2018 replacement list is a planning document doing its job, not an alarm.

The plan does not say Well 2 runs only at peak. It says Well 2 and Well 9 "pump directly into the pressure system and generally run all the time." And it never uses the words "Erwin Basin." It states that the district's "sole source of existing and planned water supply is groundwater" from the Bear Valley Groundwater Basin, one basin. [23]

The same section says the opposite of the conclusion drawn from it. Four sentences earlier, in the same Water Supply section, the plan states that "BBCCSD is a partner in Replenish Big Bear (also known as the Bear Valley Water Sustainability Project), which will provide additional groundwater supplies and offset potable water demand with recycled water." The document offered as proof that the CSD gets nothing lists this project among the district's future supplies.

The well that should worry you is not Well 2. It was Well 8, and it has been replaced. The plan called Well 8 the district's top replacement priority. It was historically one of the district's largest producers at about 550 gallons per minute; casing failure cut it to about 110. Its replacement, Well 8A, has a state environmental record that opens in October 2016 and whose most recent notice is dated May 1, 2025. [24] The file was open for more than eight years. Well 8 is no longer in service. Well 8A came online last year, roughly 150 feet from Well 8, on the wastewater agency's own Palomino Drive property, here in the east end.

Which wells get the water. I was told this project would benefit specific CSD wells, so I went looking. Here is what the record says. On July 29 the project hydrogeologist's preliminary groundwater model was reported to the board. It "shows recharge water would be pumped out by existing CSD and DWP wells in the area," and the recharge "will directly benefit existing CSD and DWP wells." [21] The April workshop said the same: under the Greenspot design, "CSD and DWP would both have direct access to the water recharged at Greenspot through existing wells in the area," which is why the allocation fight went away. [9] The basin plan the four agencies adopted in 2022 records that the CSD operated one well in that part of the basin, Well 8. Well 8 is no longer in service. Its replacement, Well 8A, came online last year less than two miles from the recharge site. [24][28] The project hydrogeologist has estimated the travel time to Well 8A at three to five years. Water mounding would still affect the well before the recharged water itself arrives. [21] Nobody should tell you the CSD is buying water for someone else's wells. The agency's own engineers say it comes out of CSD wells as well as DWP's. And in September 2017 the CSD, the Department of Water and Power, the Municipal Water District and BBARWA formed a joint powers authority to manage this basin together, because it is one basin. [25] Water that DWP does not have to pump is water left in the ground for everyone.

What I am asking

Nobody voting on this loan will be serving when the last payment clears. That is not an argument for caution. It is the entire job. The people who built this valley's water and sewer systems in the 1960s and 1970s were not building for themselves. They were building for us.

Here is what I am asking, and it takes ten minutes. The September 23 meeting is adjourned, so the next chance is October. Write the BBARWA board through bbarwa.org, which reaches all five directors, Russo and Walsh included, and ask them one question, in public, on the record: what would it take for you to vote yes on the WIFIA loan? Not whether they like the project. Not whether the estimate is firm. What it would take. If there is a condition, an audit, a milestone, a cap, name it, and the other three directors and the staff can go build it. Two directors hold a veto over what this valley does with its water for the next forty years. That veto is legitimate. Using it without saying what it is for is not.

And here is the ask closest to home. Since January I have attended most of this district's board meetings, and this is testimony, not a document: I have not heard a real conversation about what this project does for the district's own water. Which wells would see the recharged water. How it moves through the basin and how fast it dissipates. What it means for Well 2, for Well 8A, and for the new Well 11 the district is planning to replace Wells 1 and 1B. [29] That conversation belongs on a CSD agenda, in public, with BBARWA's hydrogeologist at the table and the modeling memo on the screen, pros and cons both. It is the district's water. The district's board should be the one asking the questions. If the incumbents put it on the agenda before November, good. If they do not and I am elected, it is the first thing I will ask for.

And on November 3, I am asking for your vote for the Big Bear City CSD board. Not because I will make this project cheaper. I will not, and nobody can. Because the bill is already on your statement, and you deserve a director who will tell you what it is buying.

Andrew Sauer is a candidate for the Big Bear City Community Services District board, represents County Service Area 53B on the Big Bear Area Regional Wastewater Agency board, and owns bigbear.news. The opinions expressed here are his own, offered as a candidate. They are not the position of BBARWA, its Governing Board, or its staff.

Sources

1. BBARWA, Regular Meeting Minutes, March 26, 2025. R. 03-2025, five-year sewer charge schedule, and R. 05-2025, fiscal 2026 budget; both unanimous. bbarwa.org (opens in a new tab)
2. BBARWA, Regular Meeting Agenda Packet, August 27, 2025. Item 6.B: rate schedule by agency; fees fund Replenish Big Bear "debt service and required reserves," including "future project funding, such as the WIFIA Loan"; 2023 bridge loan of $3,400,000. Item 10.A: $50,597,000 WIFIA loan, maturity May 2064, 4.83 percent. bbarwa.org (opens in a new tab)
3. BBARWA, Regular Meeting Minutes, March 25, 2026. R. 04-2026 and R. 06-2026, both unanimous. bbarwa.org (opens in a new tab)
4. BBARWA, Regular Meeting Agenda Packet, March 25, 2026. R. 04-2026 staff report: 18, 18, 18, 6 and 4 percent, unchanged from the prior year; base rate $446.27; "include expenses associated with Replenish Big Bear"; "The rate structure is sufficient to complete final design"; improvements "will need to be completed regardless of the completion of RBB." bbarwa.org (opens in a new tab)
5. NHA Advisors, Greenspot Recharge Project Funding and Financing Plan, BBARWA board, August 26, 2026, Item 10.C. Staff recommendation: "Direct staff to bring back reconsideration of the WIFIA loan at the next appropriate Governing Board meeting." Grants $26.9 million at 31 percent; rates "calculated to provide capacity for future ~$4M/year debt payments"; $756.32 per EDU by 2036; WIFIA sizing $48.999 million; 5.15 to 5.20 percent 35-year quote; rate reset lost at first draw or 51 percent completion; four-fifths vote for construction; 110 percent coverage covenant. bbarwa.org (opens in a new tab)
6. BBARWA, Regular Meeting Minutes, August 27, 2025. WIFIA loan R. 10-2025: Ayes Herrick, Miller, Segovia; Noes Russo, Walsh; "The motion did not pass." bbarwa.org (opens in a new tab)
7. BBARWA, Regular Meeting Minutes, February 25, 2026. Title XVI grant reimbursement authorization, 3 to 2, Noes Russo and Walsh. bbarwa.org (opens in a new tab)
8. BBARWA, Special Meeting Minutes, July 29, 2026. Water Systems Consulting amendments, Items 10.A ($785,533) and 10.B ($2,657,555), each 3 to 2, Noes Russo and Walsh. bbarwa.org (opens in a new tab)
9. BBARWA, Replenish Big Bear Workshop Presentation, April 27, 2026. Board survey; Greenspot alternative $88,598,000, Class 4, minus 15 to plus 25 percent; prior estimate about $105 million; $33,558,000 treatment; yield 500 acre-feet per year; slide 27, "CSD and DWP would both have direct access to the water recharged at Greenspot through existing wells in the area." bbarwa.org (opens in a new tab)
10. BBARWA, Governing Board Meetings archive. September 23, 2026 regular meeting shown as adjourned. bbarwa.org (opens in a new tab)
11. BBARWA, Regular Meeting Agenda Packet, September 24, 2025. Item 10.E, Cancel or Continue the Replenish Big Bear Project: "There is currently no funding in place for the construction of the Project; therefore, it cannot be bid for construction once the final design is complete." bbarwa.org (opens in a new tab)
12. BBARWA, Regular Meeting Agenda Packet, January 28, 2026. Item 6.B: deferred design elements (equipment pre-selection, easements, permitting) pending construction funding; Item 10.D: outfall line "constructed in the 1970's." bbarwa.org (opens in a new tab)
13. BBARWA, Regular Meeting Agenda Packet, August 26, 2026. Item 6.B: expenditures through June 30, 2026, Property Purchase $846,039; grants awarded $26.9 million, reimbursed $5.9 million, $0 for Greenspot; milestone "September 2026, Reconsideration of the ... WIFIA loan." Item 10.D: surplus land resolution, 2190 State Lane. bbarwa.org (opens in a new tab)
14. Author's calculation. Level annual payments on $49 million over 35 years: total interest $53.5 million at 4.83 percent, $57.7 million at 5.15 percent, $58.4 million at 5.20 percent. The difference is $4.2 million to $4.9 million; "roughly $4.5 million" is the midpoint. The two quotes were not on identical terms (the 2025 quote attached to $50.6 million maturing in 2064), so treat it as an order of magnitude, not an invoice.
15. BBARWA, Special Meeting Agenda Packet, July 29, 2026. Item 6.B: USBR returned the semi-annual report over concerns the project "lacked demonstrated Governing Board and community support and did not appear to be advancing"; the revised report "addressed their concerns"; reimbursement received June 12, 2026; "As a result of the revised project scope, USBR has suspended reimbursements"; "Escrow for the Greenspot property acquisition has closed." Disbursements: check 24891, June 22, 2026, Mountain Home Escrow, "2190 State Ln Property Purchase," $843,256.50. bbarwa.org (opens in a new tab)
16. Big Bear City CSD, Bear Valley Sustainability Study (Recycled Water Facilities Planning Study, 2016; funded by BBARWA, BBCCSD, BBLDWP and BBMWD). Sole drinking water supply; "long-term decline in precipitation trends"; "a 12-mile long valley"; 35 percent grants capped at $15,000,000; page 7-5, "treatment requirements will become more stringent in the future." bbccsd.org (opens in a new tab)
17. Big Bear City CSD, Water System Facts: "we are totally self dependent and we do not have any connections with water down the hill." bbccsd.org (opens in a new tab)
18. Bear Valley Electric Service, 2026-2028 Wildfire Mitigation Plan, Section 3: "Bear Valley is experiencing a steady decline in precipitation." bvesinc.com (opens in a new tab)
19. Big Bear City CSD, Stage 2 Water Restrictions Are Still in Effect. Adopted May 4, 2015; ordinance ORD2022-04; turf irrigation prohibited November 1 through April 1. bbccsd.org (opens in a new tab)
20. BBARWA, Regular Meeting Minutes, January 28, 2026. Outfall Line Investigation: $146,498 from contingency and $243,502 reallocated, with $1,350,000 programmed for fiscal 2027. bbarwa.org (opens in a new tab)
21. BBARWA, Replenish Big Bear Presentation, Special Meeting, July 29, 2026. Slide 10: "Recharge will directly benefit existing CSD and DWP wells in the area"; slide 16: "Model shows recharge water would be pumped out by existing CSD and DWP wells in the area." bbarwa.org (opens in a new tab)
22. BBARWA, Greenspot Recharge Project FAQ: yield equal to the annual use of about 2,700 households; recharged water reaches wells serving both DWP and the CSD. bbarwa.org (opens in a new tab)
23. Big Bear City CSD, 2018 Water Master Plan (Water Systems Consulting). Section 1.1; Section 3.1.1, "sole source of existing and planned water supply is groundwater"; Section 9.3, well life and replacement priorities; Tables 3-3, 5-2, 5-3, 1-1 (FF-8 Greenspot Boulevard, FF-11 State Lane); Appendix C, Section 5.0, Wells 2 and 9 "generally run all the time." bbccsd.org (opens in a new tab)
24. CEQAnet, Big Bear City CSD Well 8A Development Project, SCH 2016101012, October 5, 2016 through Notice of Determination May 1, 2025; "approximately 150 feet west of Well 8." ceqanet.lci.ca.gov (opens in a new tab)
25. Bear Valley Basin Groundwater Sustainability Agency, About: "In September 2017, the BBCCSD, BBMWD, BBARWA and BBLDWP entered into a joint powers agreement to form the Agency." bvbgsa.org (opens in a new tab)
26. Bear Valley Basin Groundwater Sustainability Agency, Minutes, June 27, 2024, Item 4.2 (in the June 17, 2025 agenda package, page 6): the BBARWA general manager on the outfall's life, exposed section and "approximately $80 million" replacement; the agency's engineer on secondary permits being "phased out." bvbgsa.org (opens in a new tab)
27. U.S. Census Bureau, 2020 Decennial Census: Big Bear City CDP, 12,738; City of Big Bear Lake, 5,046. Sugarloaf, Erwin Lake and Lake Williams are inside the Big Bear City CDP. data.census.gov (opens in a new tab)
28. Bear Valley Basin Groundwater Sustainability Agency, Groundwater Sustainability Plan, January 2022, Section 2.7.1, East Baldwin management area: "The BBCCSD operates one well (Well 8) in the western part of the management area." That plan predates Well 8A. Well 8 is no longer in service; Well 8A came online last year. Well 8A's distance from 2190 State Lane is a map measurement, under two miles. bvbgsa.org (opens in a new tab)
29. Big Bear City CSD, Regular Meeting Agenda Packet, June 15, 2026: Water Systems Consulting proposal for the Well 11 project, "The Well 11 Project will abandon existing Wells 1 and 1b ... A proposed new well, Well 11, will replace the supply from Wells 1 and 1b"; approved by the board June 15, 2026. Posted as "06-15-26 Full Board Packet" at bbccsd.org (opens in a new tab)