Supervisors back water loan effort

San Bernardino – County Board of Supervisors Monday authorized an application to the state Department of Water Resources for a $520,000 low-interest loan to design and construct a new water system for Pioneertown.

The county’s Special Districts department also is seeking a low interest loan from the U.S. IF Farmers Home Administration for the project.

The Department of Water Resources loan would come from funds made available by the state’s voter-approved Safe Drinking Water Bond Act of 1976 and would be repaid through assessments on properties benefiting from the proposed system.

The supervisors in January approved levying fees of $100 an acre on some 400 properties in the desert community north of Yucca Valley to pay costs of locating an adequate water source and drilling a well.

A special district officials said the new system, which additionally would serve about 100 homes and businesses would replace a private one that is undersized and deteriorated and that has about 40 connections. A number of residents now reportedly must have water hauled to their homes.