Oak Flat Water District Multi-Year Water Banking and Transfer Program

The Project involves a Multi-Year Water Purchase Option Agreement (Agreement) between OFWD, Beltran Farms, Inc. (Beltran), and Homer LLC (Homer; Project Applicant), whereby Beltran assigns to Homer 100 percent or up to 1,858 AFY, of the OFWD Supplies available to the Beltran Property for a period of 30 years, or up to 55,740 AF during the term of the Agreement. Under the terms of the Agreement, Homer may use the assigned OFWD Supplies both within and outside of OFWD’s service area, limited to only areas within the SWP Place of Use. The purpose of the Project is to provide Homer with flexibility to deliver the OFWD Supplies assigned to Homer under the Agreement outside of OFWD to meet the needs of various water management programs and partners. Through the Project, Home may utilize OFWD supplies for its own uses on Homer properties or sell and deliver its OFWD supplies to water transfer partners. To allow for greater management flexibility and timing of deliveries, Homer may temporarily store OFWD supplies in the Semitropic SWRU groundwater banking program (using existing capacity rights) prior to recovering the water for use by Homer or its water transfer partners. Potential water transfer partners are located across California. Water transferred under this agreement may be delivered inside or outside of Kern County to Homer’s water transfer partners. The Project would not change the State Water Project water entitlement for OFWD or increase Beltran’s maximum entitlement of State Water Project supplies from OFWD. As such, the Project would not increase the total quantity of State Water Project water supplies to be diverted from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta or delivered to OFWD. All of the Project water deliveries would be within the existing capacities of existing water infrastructure. No new facilities or capacity would need to be constructed to operate the Project because storage and conveyance facilities currently exist and are operational. Likewise, all deliveries to Homer’s water management partners would be within the operational limits of facilities and projects established by previously approved CEQA documents. Because no new or upgraded physical infrastructure is required, there is no Project site that could be included on existing lists of hazardous materials sites compiled pursuant to Government Code Section 65962.5. Water transferred under the Project would be used to offset existing demands and would not be used to support new, previously unplanned development.