About

The Department of Water Resources owns and operates the State Water Project (SWP), a water storage and delivery system of reservoirs, aqueducts, power plants and pumping plants extending more than 700 miles—two-thirds the length of California. Planned, constructed, and operated by the Department of Water Resources, the SWP is the nation’s largest state-built, multi-purpose, user-financed water project. It supplies water to more than 26 million people in northern California, the Bay Area, the San Joaquin Valley, the Central Coast, and southern California. SWP water also irrigates about 750,000 acres of farmland, mainly in the San Joaquin Valley.

The Department currently has $2.72 billion in fixed-rate Water System Revenue Bonds outstanding. The debt has a final maturity of December 1, 2035. The State Water Project Contractors are responsible for the payment of debt service on the bonds and are billed annually for their share of the debt obligation. The Department has structured each new issuance of bonds with relatively level annual debt service payments.