Both the Sheep Creek Water Company and the Phelan Pinon Hills Services District have agreed to work together to develop a consolidation plan. In September, both boards passed resolutions and signed letters of intent to officially move forward in developing a consolidation plan between the two water districts.
Sheep Creek Water Company is currently under a moratorium and cannot issue any meters. Additionally, any building permits will not be issued as a result. This came about when Sheep Creek was unable to meet its source capacity–serving water to residents based on the highest amount of water used in one day within the past ten years. This required Sheep Creek to develop a plan to meet those needs and submit it to the state for review and approval. One of those options needed to be consolidation with a neighboring district. Initially, both Sheep Creek and PPHCSD could not agree on terms for a mutual consolidation and a viable plan could not be developed and Sheep Creek submitted to the state that they would be moving forward to constructing up to four more wells to meet their source capacity at a cost to the shareholders in the multiple millions of dollars.
Recently, in talks with the state regarding water-related grants, the general manager of the PPHCSD Don Bartz was informed that grant monies could be available to consolidate. Seeing benefits to both water companies, Barts approached Sheep Creek with this news. Both districts agreed that it would be within the best interest of the water users to go back to the table and work to design a consolidation plan agreeable to both districts. This does not mean that consolidation is going to occur, only a plan will be developed. Any move to consolidate would have to be voted on by both boards and Sheep Creek would have to bring the matter to their shareholders.
