East Bay Municipal Utility District (EBMUD), colloquially referred to as "East Bay Mud", provides water and sewage treatment for customers in portions of Alameda County and Contra Costa County in California, on the eastern side of San Francisco Bay, including the cities of Richmond, El Cerrito, Hercules, San Pablo, Pinole, Lafayette, Danville, Oakland, Piedmont, Emeryville, Berkeley, Alameda, San Leandro, neighboring unincorporated regions, and portions of cities such as Hayward and San Ramon.[1]
The district was founded after a severe drought in 1923 proved that a local system of reservoirs was inadequate. The district constructed Pardee Dam (finished in 1929) on the Mokelumne River in the Sierra Nevada, and a large steel pipe aqueduct to transport the water from Pardee Reservoir across the Central Valley to San Pablo Reservoir located in the hills of the East Bay region. In subsequent years two additional aqueducts were constructed and the water distributed to several other East Bay reservoirs. From the various large regional reservoirs, water is transported to treatment plants and delivered to local reservoirs and tanks, thence distributed by gravity to households.
In the 1980s with federal grant funding EBMUD undertook a major facility expansion to accommodate wet weather overflow (i.e. the vastly increased system demand in the rainy season). This project took many years of construction for implementation, after the planning and Environmental Impact Statement phases.
In May 2008, EBMUD announced severe drought and austerity measures for its customers. With the easing of the drought, these measures were rescinded in 2010.
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