San Diego’s legislative delegation is pushing a bill in Sacramento to allow the Sycuan tribe, owners of Sycuan casino, to have access to the state water project that other communities in San Diego have access to—but which tribes generally do not unless they sign deals with municipal water agencies.
Most of the tribe gets its water from a well. That is an impediment to expanding the tribal casino and building a new 300-room hotel.
State law generally forbids water agencies to sell water outside of their boundaries. The Sycuan reservation is not within any existing water district. It doesn’t want to go through the process of becoming part of one, which officials feel would be an insult to tribal sovereignty.
However officials at the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which sells to San Diego County, worry about setting a precedent—they also worry about collecting money if the tribe ever has a dispute with the district.
The district wants it concerns addressed before it will support the bill.
That doesn’t cut it with the bill’s sponsor Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, who argues that the water should be made available to the tribe to help right past wrongs.
The 220-member tribe hopes to be able to access about 130 million gallons a year, about as much as 2,000 people use in a year.
Gonzalez’s bill would only help the Sycuan tribe, but other tribes are in similar situations in a state that is in the middle of a historic drought.
According to the lawmaker, “Nobody else came to me, if somebody else came to me, I would probably do it for somebody else as well.” Also supporting the bill is San Diego mayor Kevin Faulconer, Supervisor Bill Horn and San Diego Gas & Electric.
The agency that would actually selling to Sycuan, Padre Dam, says it wants to see the details of the bill before it supports it. Its general manager, Allen Carlise, wants the tribe to pay the same fees it would have to pay if it was a private party seeking to annex to the district. Sycuan says it plans to do that.
