District Profile

In 1953, faced with an expanding population and economy that would soon exhaust local drinking water supplies, voters in southern Ventura County united to form the Calleguas Municipal Water District for the purpose of providing the region with a reliable supply of high quality supplemental water.  Communities served include the cities of Oxnard, Port Hueneme, Camarillo, Thousand Oaks, Moorpark, Simi Valley, and the unincorporated areas of Oak Park, Santa Rosa Valley, Bell Canyon, Lake Sherwood, Somis, Camarillo Estates, and Camarillo Heights.  The district serves an area of approximately 365 square miles.

Over the last four decades, the number of residents in the district's service area has nearly quadrupled from 138,000 in 1964 to an estimated 590,000 in 2005, roughly 75 percent of Ventura County's population. Rapid population and economic growth has placed increasing demands on the District resulting in an increase in annual deliveries from 9,000 acre feet to in excess of 115,000 acre feet over the same period.

The district's drinking water supply is provided by the California State Water Project, a network of reservoirs, aqueducts, and pumping facilities that conveys water from the northern California Sierras to central and southern California (see figure below). Imported water is piped into the Calleguas service area through a system connection with the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (Metropolitan), a State water contractor. Prior to delivery to Calleguas, water is treated at Metropolitan's Jensen Treatment Facility in Granada Hills to ensure that all federal and state water quality standards are met.  Water is then conveyed by Calleguas through 140 miles of large-diameter pipeline to local water agencies and companies for ultimate delivery to area residents and businesses.