Transforming Your Water Agency’s Project Pipeline
According to Water Finance & Management, Eastern Municipal Water District (EMWD), based in Southern California, has helped create a roadmap for doing so. Over the past two decades, EMWD has secured more than $700 million in funding from federal, state and local agencies that have supported a broad range of infrastructure projects for water, wastewater and recycled water.
As California’s sixth-largest public water agency, EMWD is uniquely positioned to maximize these funding sources. It serves nearly 1 million customers and is located in one of California’s fastest-growing regions. EMWD’s service area is less than 50 percent developed based on land use agency General Plans. The result is that EMWD is investing $785 million in its five-year capital improvement plan to ensure infrastructure is in place to accommodate development activities across its 601-square mile service area.
But securing the $700 million in funding did not happen overnight. It has been a long-term strategic priority of its Board of Directors to return those tax dollars back to EMWD’s service area to benefit its customers. We talked with EMWD General Manager Joe Mouawad to learn about how EMWD has made external funding one of its core tenants of its Board-adopted Strategic Plan.
Mouawad has more than three decades of experience in the water industry. At EMWD, he oversees daily operations of the organization, which provides service to nearly one million people in western Riverside County and northern San Diego County, California.
Water Finance & Management: How do you view the importance of funding within your water agency’s strategic plan?
Joe Mouawad: First and foremost, these efforts are about our customers. EMWD wants to provide cost-effective water, wastewater and recycled water service to the communities we serve. Part of that commitment involves working to identify and secure appropriate funding opportunities that ultimately help minimize costs.
When our customers send their tax dollars to Washington, D.C., or Sacramento, we want to do everything we can to return those funds to their communities. Our grants and loans program accomplishes that and allows us to further invest in infrastructure needs without placing the full burden on our current or future ratepayers.
What we are most proud of is that we have been entrusted with these opportunities and our customers have benefited from them.
WF&M: What is your approach to successfully securing funding from external sources?
Mouawad: At the end of the day, our successes are the direct result of the relationships we build. We do not view this as a one-way street. We want to be partners with our legislative delegation and the funding agencies. The grants are a byproduct of that partnership.