East Orange August 12, 2008 County Water District The Honorable Nancy Wieben Stock Presiding Judge of the Superior Court*

Opportunities for further water conservation exist especially with regard to landscape watering. EOCWD agrees with the finding.

Conservation pricing, or tiered pricing, with a fair and reasonable base allotment, followed by tiers of higher rates, can be an effective tool to motivate further conservation. EOCWD does not agree with tiered pricing and does not intend to restructure its pricing as such. Tiered rate structuring can work if it is implemented on a "property by property" basis. In order for that to be done, an agency would need personnel to be assigned to just that project and a study done on each property to determine the proper allotment for that property. Larger water agencies may be 185 N Mc Pherson Road able to do this. EOCWD has only 3 workers who are field employees; Orange, CA 92869-3720 therefore, it is not possible to do this type of study even if we were www.eocwd.com to consider a tiered water rate. For the last eleven years, EOCWD 714.538.5815 Phone has sold an average of 1055 acre feet of water per year (see 714.538.0334 Fax attached). In that same period, we have added 64 service connections to our system for a total of 1207. The average usage per entropies to the 5 . . . » service connection has reduced from 40ccf per month to 38ccf, One EAST ccf equals 100 cubic feet of water, or 748 gallons. It is apparent that ORANGE our customers are already using less water, thus our conservation COUNTY efforts are taking root. WATER DISTRICT EOCWD will continue to send out water conservation information with our billing statements as a constant reminder to encourage conservation. DIRECTORS As a reminder, it is our understanding that any water agency that Richard E. Barrett Richard B. Bell desires to increase its water rates or implement tiered water rates Douglas M. Chapman would be required to obtain a vote of the public under Proposition John Dulebohn William Vanderwerff 218 regulations. William H. Redcay General Manager RECOMMENDATIONS In accordance with California Penal Code sections 933 and 933.05, each recommendation will be responded to by the government entity to which it is addressed. The responses are to be submitted to the Presiding Judge of the Superior Court. Based on the findings of this report, the 2007-2008 Orange County Grand Jury makes the following recommendations: EOCWD responses for the R-1, R-2a, R-2b, and R-2c are as follows: Continue to emphasize methods and availability of tools that