Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the American States Water Company Conference Call discussing the First Quarter of 2012 Results. If you have not received a copy of this morning's earnings release, please call (909) 394-3600 extension 651, and one will be faxed or emailed to you. If you would like to listen to the replay of this call, it will begin this afternoon at approximately 2 p.m. Pacific Time and run through Monday, May 14, 2012. After logging on to the website, click the Investors button at the top of the page. The archive is located just above the Stock Quote section. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this call will be recorded and will be limited to no more than 1 hour. At this time, I would like to turn the call over to Eva Tang, Chief Financial Officer of American States Water Company.

Thank you, Emily. Welcome, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. On the call with me is our President and CEO, Bob Sprowls. I would like to first remind you that matters discussed during the conference call may be forward-looking statements intended to qualify for the Safe Harbors from liability established by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Please review a description of the company's risks and uncertainties in our most recent Form 10-K and Form 10-Q on file with the Securities and Exchange Commission. With that, I'm pleased to report that we delivered strong first quarter results with a quarter-over-quarter increase in earnings from continuing operations of 43% to $0.50 per share compared to $0.37 per share for the first quarter of 2011. Net income for the first quarter of 2012 increased by $2.5 million to $10.1 million compared to the same period the last year. Net income from continuing operations also increased by $3.2 million or 45.4% compared to the 3 months ended March 31, 2011. Our strong financial performance is further demonstrated by increases in our revenues. For the first quarter of 2012, operating revenues increased by $12.3 million or 13.1% to $106.6 million. This increase is mainly driven by an increase in revenues from our contracted services operating under American States Utility Services or ASUS. For the first quarter ended March 31, 2012, ASUS' revenue increased by $10.6 million to $29.9 million compared to the same period last year. It was primarily due to increased construction activity at the Fort Bragg military base, including a major water and wastewater pipeline replacement project. Due to better than expected weather during the first quarter, ASUS accelerated service and construction work originally scheduled for later in 2012 at Fort Bragg. Water revenues at Golden State Water…

Thank you, Eva. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I'm pleased to report another quarter with growing revenue, earnings and cash. I'm also pleased to announce that on May 2, 2012, the Board of Directors of American States Water approved a quarterly cash dividend of $0.28 per share on the common shares of the company. This marks the 304th consecutive dividend payment by the company. Our ability to invest in Golden State Water's infrastructure to serve our customers is driven by our ability to earn an adequate return for our shareholders. We continue to focus on growing our dividend to achieve a 5-year compound annual growth rate of at least 5% over the long term. Given American States' low payout ratio compared its peers, there is room to grow the dividend. In terms of California's regulatory environment, all 3 PUC commissioners appointed in 2011 have now been confirmed by the state Senate. We believe the forward-looking test years and mechanisms to decouple revenue from sales offered by California Utility Regulation allowed Golden State Water to provide consistent returns. We are very focused on getting through the regulatory process for the general rate case filed in July 2011 for all of our water regions and the General Office. The evidentiary hearings for this case began last Friday and are scheduled to be completed this week. New rates as approved by the California PUC will be effective January 1, 2013. In February of this year, we filed our general rate case application for Bear Valley Electric. This general rate case application is in the process of review with the California PUC. Once approved, we expect new electric rates to become effective in the first quarter of 2013. To recap Golden State Water's cost of capital proceeding on file with the CPUC, we, along…

[Operator Instructions] We will begin with Michael Roomberg with Ladenburg Thalmann.

I just -- I want to be clear on this Fort Bragg pull forward of construction. Are you -- I understand that you pulled forward in the quarter from later in the year. But are you expecting that you'll pull forward projects from 2013 into 2012 as you go throughout the remainder of the year to replace the projects that you've already completed there?

It's not clear at this point whether work will be pulled forward from 2013. But clearly, we've had a lot of work done in the first quarter and work will continue on that project.

And Michael, our commitment to the government is to complete this in 2014. So if we have other activity going on at the same bases, so we may move around the crew to do that.

Got it, got it. Okay. And then just one follow-up on the regulated ops, if I could. We were a bit surprised by the increased consumption from your customers that are not on tiered rates and the benefit that,that caused in the quarter. Can you just update us on the number of customers and the size or the portion of your revenue that is attributable to those customers?

I think in general, Michael, we -- I think about 95% of our entire water customers are on WRAM. So about 4% to 5% is not on WRAM. Also, the service charge is fixed. It doesn't impact by the consumption. So I think you can kind of estimate using 5% as the non-WRAM customers.

Okay. And any idea what percentage those customer's consumption was up versus last year?

I think in general, the first quarter consumption increased by 7% compared to last year first quarter.

[Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from Heike Doerr of Robert W. Baird.

I wanted to go back to this Fort Bragg contract. Is there any way you can share with us what percentage of the project is completed, this contract that goes until 2014 so we might be able to quantify how much revenue is attached to that as we look ahead?

Difficult to do at this point. We -- at this point, we believe that it's just a sort of a pull forward. The work that was sort of projected for the entire year, we still think we're on target for that. Now, as we move through the quarters, we may find out, we'll obviously have better, a better appreciation for where this project is. But so far, it's a function of better weather conditions and we're just ahead of schedule.

Can you maybe share with us on a year-over-year basis what level of contribution you expect from ASUS, either percentage of whole or what kind of an earnings year-over-year improvement we would expect to see as a result of what's occurred in the first quarter already?

Well, as you know, ASUS had reported $0.38 per share contribution in 2011 with very few large one-time adjustments. We believe ASUS has a good chance of posting another year of solid earnings, particularly with such a strong first quarter. It's difficult to say with much certainty at this time, whether we're going to exceed last year. But we do expect very solid performance out of ASUS.

[Operator Instructions] At this time, I'm not seeing any questions. I'd like to turn it back over to Mr. Sprowls for any closing remarks.

Okay, thank you, Emily. Again, I just want to thank you all for your participation today and for your continued interest and investment in American States Water Company. And wish you all a good day.

This concludes today's American States Water Company Conference Call. As a reminder, the call will be archived on our website and can be replayed beginning Monday, May 7, 2012, at 2 p.m. Pacific time and will run through Monday, May 14, 2012. After logging onto the website, click the Investors button at the top of the page. The archive is located just above the Stock Quote section. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.