The Crestview Mutual Water Company Shareholder Website is maintained by shareholders to provide updates and information of interest to shareholders on the activities of Crestview Mutual Water Company.
  to receive emails of important shareholder news

Visit the new shareholder forum to stay informed, exchange ideas and comments, and get involved.

The Facts:

"It's your company, It's your water"

View: Board of Directors Meeting Minutes and Attendance

Crestview shareholders (you) own Crestview Mutual Water Company ("Crestview") and rights to the available Crestview groundwater allocation. Elected Crestview Board of Directors, under the guidelines of the Crestview Bylaws and direction of Crestview shareholders, facilitate the distribution of the water to Crestview shareholders at cost. Directors are volunteers, they are not compensated.

Directors (September 2021)

 

Crestview shareholders vote on company issues, either in person at a shareholder meeting, or by assigning their vote to a third party or the Board of Directors through a proxy form sent by Crestview. Only your vote or proxy can approve or reject changes. It is your responsibility to monitor changes to operational procedures and the Bylaws which are published and mailed to all shareholders.

Special meetings of the Board of Directors can be called by 20% of Crestview Shareholders.

"California's Drought Problem"

Rain in California is always welcome, but they barely made a dent in the six year old drought. Solving the state's water problem will take radical solutions. The biggest users of California water are farmers, not homeowners. 80% goes to agriculture, 14% to homes and lawns, 6% to industry, commercial operations and government. There are statewide differences in the volume of residential water use, with divergent patterns of consumption based on climate, water system efficiency, and conservation efforts.

UCLA's Institute of the Environment and Sustainability states "Southern California is so far ahead of Northern California in taking good care of water and using it carefully." Unfortunately, not all of the effects of conservation have been uniform. City of Los Angeles residents average about 152 gallons per day.

However, California exports about six trillion gallons of virtual water, or about 500 gallons per resident a day. What is virtual water? Virtual water is the water used by farmers to grow crops for export.

How can this happen amid a drought? The answer is mis-pricing. A free market would raise the price of water, reflecting its scarcity, and lead to a reduction in the export of virtual water. But California water markets are anything but free. A long history of local politics, complicated regulation and seemingly arbitrary controls on distribution have led to gross inefficiency. (source: The Wall Street Journal)

Where does the water go?

For example; California produces about 80% of the world's almonds, using about 10% of California's water supply. The state's 940,000 acres of almonds consume about 1.2 trillion gallons of water a year, or about 600 gallons of water per pound of nuts. In contrast, less-profitable tomatoes use about 26 gallons of water per pound. Almond farming has grown 10-fold since 1970.

California could be saving up to 14 million acre-feet* of untapped water – providing more than the amount of water used in all of California's cities in one year – with an aggressive statewide effort to use water-saving practices, reuse water, and capture lost storm water. (source: Pacific Institute and the Natural Resources Defense Council June 2014.)