Vista Irrigation District board of directors voted to use $1.57 million received from the San Diego County Water Authority (Water Authority) as part of a legal settlement with the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (Metropolitan) to offset the financial impact of Water Authority rate increases over the next five years.

The Water Authority recently received a $44.4 million rebate from Metropolitan as a result of a decade-long rate litigation between the agencies. The Water Authority sued Metropolitan for overcharges on imported water and won on several critical issues in the cases covering charges from 2011 to 2014.  In February 2021, the Water Authority announced a plan to distribute the rebate to its 24 member agencies.  The district’s pro-rata share of the rebate is $1,571,006.

To minimize the impact of future Water Authority water rate increases, the district will use equal increments of about $314,000 per year over the next five years to offset Water Authority rate increases, reducing the amount of the pass-through increase, which directly benefits our customers.

“Reducing the impacts of regional rate pressures is important to the district,” said board President Patrick Sanchez. “We believe using the rebate to offset future increases is the best thing we can do to provide the maximum benefit to our ratepayers.”