Rural Water District Wins a Reprieve : Santa Ana Mountains Agency Faced Loss of Half Its Territory

The Santa Ana Mountains Water District, threatened with the loss of more than half of its territory for allegedly failing to provide adequate service to landowners, won a 60-day reprieve Wednesday from county officials.

The Orange County Local Agency Formation Commission voted unanimously to give the rural district more time to show how it intends to supply water to the owners of the district’s prime but still largely undeveloped land.

“It’s put up or shut up,” Commissioner Phillip R. Schwartze said. “That’s what it boils down to.”

During the two-month period, any landowner unhappy with the district’s service may petition the commission to be moved into another district.

The district serves about 600 customers in canyon areas beyond El Toro Road. Several large developments, such as Robinson Ranch, Portola Hills and the Dove Canyon Country Club, will eventually bring the number of homes in the district to about 6,000. But the district, which had based its 1980 master plan on a lower estimate of future customers, does not have the capacity to guarantee water for that many houses and accompanying businesses.

Some landowners have accused the water district’s board of trying to block development in the canyons area by not purchasing more water. The owners of one property, the 75-acre Herrmann-Jensen Nursery on El Toro Road, filed a $10-million inverse condemnation suit against the district after they were told that they could not have enough water to build their approved 230-home development.

Last month, the commission considered a proposal that would have reduced the water district’s “sphere of influence”--essentially the territory to which it can provide service--to zero. That would have allowed any landowner to leave the district and purchase water from the neighboring Irvine Ranch or Santa Margarita water districts.

On Wednesday, the commission considered a different proposal that would have removed the mostly undeveloped portion of the district from its sphere of influence, leaving it with most of its present customers but with little opportunity to attract new ones.

The district’s attorney, Alexander Bowie, said that the commission’s decision to continue the matter was “very sound and responsible.” The water district should have a new plan to allocate its water and purchase additional capacity completed by then, he said.