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 would recover and purify our lost water and use it to enhance water levels in the Valley.

Potential projects include the following.

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Greenspot Groundwater Recharge Project

The BBARWA Board is considering a potential phase one project option for groundwater recharge at the previously proposed Greenspot site in Erwin Lake. If implemented, this project would direct treated wastewater to Greenspot for increased groundwater recharge.

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

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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.