In April 1998, Imperial Irrigation District and the San Diego County Water Authority executed an agreement to transfer 200,000 acre-feet per year. The water is conserved and transferred from IID for use in the SDCWA service area for an initial term of 45 years with the option to renew for an additional 30 years. SDCWA can however, elect to terminate the agreement after 35 years under certain conditions. IID is responsible for determining how to produce the conserved water, except that land fallowing will only be a permitted method of saving water during the initial 15 years..

In November 1998, Metropolitan and SDCWA reached an agreement to exchange water. Under the agreement, which was amended and restated in Oct. 2003, SDCWA will make up to 200,000 af of conserved water available to Metropolitan annually, and Metropolitan will deliver an equal amount of exchange water to the Water Authority. The transfer began in 2003 following IID, Coachella Valley Water District, Metropolitan, SDCWA, and Dept. of the Interior execution of the Colorado River Water Delivery Agreement.

The transfer is in its fourth year of implementation with 40,000 af of water being exchanged with SDCWA in 2006. The exchange of water will increase to 200,000 af by 2021. Metropolitan receives revenue from SDCWA for each acre-foot of exchange water delivered to the Water Authority. Up to 77,700 af of water conserved by the All American and Coachella Canal lining projects will be exchanged with SDCWA as water becomes available from implementation of those projects.