A new water legacy

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The current water cycle is broken. Our only source of water enters as precipitation, then flows into the lake or soaks into the ground to become groundwater. After our community uses groundwater for our potable water needs, the wastewater is treated at our local treatment plant and pumped out of the Valley to irrigate crops in Lucerne Valley. Through this current practice—simply a method of disposal—we are losing millions of gallons of local water each day.

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Replenish Big Bear recovers and purifies our lost water and uses it to enhance water levels in the Valley. Additional potential projects include the following.

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Sand Canyon Groundwater Recharge Project
Some of the Program Water will be stored in Big Bear Lake and can be used for groundwater recharge in coordination with BBMWD. This project will include construction of a new pump station and pipeline to percolate the blended water at Sand Canyon. BBLDWP and BBCCSD hope to minimize costs by utilizing existing infrastructure owned by Big Bear Mountain Resorts. The water recharged at Sand Canyon can later be captured as clean drinkable (aka potable) water by existing BBLDWP wells in the area. BBLDWP will distribute water to BBCCSD through existing interties between their water systems.

*The BBCCSD Board is also considering, with greater scrutiny, a potential project option for groundwater
recharge at the previously proposed Greenspot site in Erwin Lake. If implemented, this project would redirect some of the flow from Stanfield Marsh/Big Bear Lake to Greenspot for increased groundwater recharge.

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Bear Mountain Golf Course Irrigation
Big Bear Mountain Resorts uses groundwater to irrigate the Bear Mountain Golf Course. Using existing infrastructure, the Resorts could use Program water stored in the Lake to irrigate the golf course instead of using groundwater. As a result, more water would stay in the ground for community drinking water use.

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Shay Pond
Currently, potable groundwater is put into Shay Pond to support habitat for the endangered Unarmored Threespine
Stickleback fish. In the future, a pipeline extension from BBARWA could deliver Program water to Shay Pond, sustaining ecological requirements and keeping more potable water available for the community.