Water District Rethinks Boundaries

The is considering redrawing its boundaries to deal with the region's explosive growth.

The ideal, according to a news release issued by district officials, is that each of five board members will represent 151,000 residents. Currently, the number of residents served by the EMWD is 755,000 people within a 542-square-mile service area.

The number of people the district serves grew by 50 percent since 2001.

EMWD is the freshwater, wastewater service and recycled water provider to a 542-square mile area from Moreno Valley southward along the I-215 corridor to Murrieta and Temecula, and eastward to Hemet and San Jacinto.

The board is set to act on its proposed revisions, using a map at a work session, to explain the proposed changes to the public on Wednesday.

According to Joe Kuebler, EMWD’s board president, “One of our objectives as an elected board is to keep communities of interest together. And because we want to be fair to as many people as possible, we’d appreciate knowing what our residents think.”

The board is opting to keep whole cities within one boundary, while keeping the numbers of people within each boundary balanced.

The board also hopes to minimize instances where more than one board member represents portions of districts in one city.

The district also hopes to keep local water agencies and other municipal water districts within a single division, in order to lessen confusion about which district represents which community and under which EMWD Board member.