City to Join Water Agency’s Service Area
Calleguas Municipal Water District, the county’s largest water agency, got a little bit bigger Tuesday as officials finalized an agreement to annex Port Hueneme into Calleguas’ service area.
About 54,000 customers are to be added to Calleguas’ customer base of about 500,000, encompassing all of eastern Ventura County and some areas in the west county. Calleguas is part of the Metropolitan Water District, which supplies high-quality, state-treated water throughout Southern California.
The plan to annex Port Hueneme and its military base, the Point Mugu Navy base, and Oxnard Harbor into the Calleguas service area has been in the works for several months. But it was not completed until Tuesday, when Calleguas General Manager Don Kendall handed over a check for $1.19 million in annexation fees to Metropolitan Water officials in Los Angeles.
“That was actually quite a bargain,” Kendall said. “Normally, annexation fees would have been around $5 million.”
The reason for the lower price is that the Port Hueneme water agency comes with assets: It is building a plant to remove salt from brackish water, and it is also entitled to a certain amount of state water, boosting how much water Calleguas can receive.
“Everybody wins,” Kendall said.
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