The California Regional Water Quality Control Board in 1993 imposed a plan to protect Morongo Basin’s groundwater. In 2012 a lack of progress lead the board to put a septic tank discharge prohibition in place for Yucca Valley. The prohibition required a phasing out wastewater discharges from septic systems in three phases beginning in May 2016 and ending by May 2022 when the Hi-Desert Water District was expected to have a wastewater treatment facility fully online. And while it’s now May 2022, financial, legal, economic, and technical issues have added years to completion of the sewer plant.
In 2016, the Water Quality Control Board approved water district requests to extend the deadline for phase one from 2016 to 2021, and also to combine phases two and three and extend that deadline as well. Three years later, in 2019, the water district was granted another amendment pushing the deadline for completion of phase one from 2021 to 2023. Right now, with roughly fewer than 800 connections remaining in phase one the water district appears to be on track for completion just ahead of the 2023 deadline. Phase two remains in a planning and design stage while the district’s main focus is aimed at securing state and federal funding to help defray costs. The deadline for completion of phase two is linked to the possible protected status designation of the western Joshua tree: December 2028 if the tree does not go on the state’s endangered species list, and December 2031 if the tree remains on the list
