Monte Vista Water District, CA: Lead Service Line Inventory
December 2023 - October 2024
Photo of a Monte Vista Water District field staff taken from the District’s website
Community Description
The Monte Vista Water District (MVWD) is a county water district that provides wholesale water supply services in southern California to the communities of Montclair, Chino Hills, portions of Chino and the unincorporated area lying between the cities of Pomona, Chino Hills, Chino and Ontario. The service area population is over 135,000.
Project Scope
EPIC provided assistance to the Monte Vista Water District for developing a lead service line (LSL) inventory to comply with the revised Lead and Copper Rule (LCRR).
Services Provided
EPIC primarily supported this project by contracting for professional services, while also providing close project management and adapting to the utility’s evolving priorities throughout the inventory development. During a December 2023 site visit, EPIC staff and utility leadership identified the main barrier to fulfilling the requirements of the LCRR: the lack of digitized asset records. The District’s service history - including key information about service line materials - was stored as handwritten paper files.
To address this situation, EPIC procured a local scanning company to digitize the tie cards and contracted a virtual transcription service to convert handwritten notes into text, enabling identification of service line materials. These efforts significantly modernized MVWD’s asset management database. The total cost of EPIC’s contracted services was $11,669. For inventory development, MVWD used the California State Water Resources Control Board’s approved stratified random sampling method to verify a portion of the service area. Of the 11,007 privately owned service laterals installed before 1986, 2,594 were physically verified by District field staff. No lead was found in the sampled laterals, and the District’s inventory was approved by the State Water Board in October 2024.
Challenges and Opportunities
| Type of Challenge | Project Experience | Outcomes and/or Opportunities |
|---|---|---|
| Administration: Record accessibility | The system’s history of service work orders containing asset inventory details were on handwritten paper files. | Scanning and digitizing the District’s history of service work orders expanded data available in the system’s asset management database. |
| Labor/Workforce | There was limited staffing available to conduct a significant amount of the record digitization, state communication, and inventory formatting. | Contracted services and EPIC project management time aided in meeting the LCRR regulatory deadline. |
Project Next Steps
With no lead identified in the District’s verified sample, MVWD will not be required to conduct an expanded annual inventory under the LCRR. Moving forward, if lead is discovered during routine operations, District staff must notify the State Water Board and update the LSL inventory accordingly.
While EPIC provided information that supported statistical modeling and inventory administration with the State, MVWD had the internal capacity to manage much of the process independently. The request for assistance was timely, and the project’s success reflects strong collaboration with the MVWD team. However, without the option of statistical modeling, completing the inventory through physical inspections would have posed significant challenges and required substantial effort.
Though MVWD has the staff capacity and technology systems to support integration into an asset management platform, backfilling historical information remains a resource-intensive task—should the District choose to pursue it. Policy design for compliance requirements should recognize that even relatively well-resourced utilities like MVWD may not have excess administrative capacity to manage such mandates alongside their routine responsibilities.