O.C. Sits on Enough Water to Last Years

While other California communities face possible water shortages this summer, local and state officials say Orange County’s situation is far less dire because it has an underground lake containing millions of gallons of water accumulated through centuries of runoff from the Santa Ana River.

There is enough water in the lake, they say, to supply the county for several years into a serious drought. No other county in California is so blessed, state water officials say, and few others have so aggressively managed such a supply.

“The Orange County ground water basin is operated in effect like a large reservoir,” said Jonas Minton, chief water conservation officer for the California Department of Water Resources. “It allows water to be stored in times of plenty and withdrawn during times of higher need. It gives them insurance against a drought.”

Orange County residents, however, aren’t unaffected by drought. Despite the underground water supply, water district officials say that only so much per year can be drawn off or else seawater will pour in and ruin the whole stock.

Further, since the lake is beneath only the northern and central portions of the county, South County has no access to it. All of Orange County, therefore, must continue to depend on a mixture of local ground water and water imported from Northern California and the Colorado River.

Most cities and water districts in Orange County, as well as numerous others throughout Southern California, are drafting ordinances asking their customers for voluntary water cutbacks of at least 10% this summer. Mandatory measures could be put in place next year if the voluntary efforts are not successful, Orange County water officials say. An average household uses 326,000 gallons of water per year, or about 893 gallons a day.

“Yes, we are starting to seriously approach the limits of our available water supply,” said Stan Sprague, general manager of the Municipal Water District of Orange County, the county’s largest purveyor of imported water supplies.

While the county still fares well as a whole, two communities, located on opposite ends of the county, are expecting shortfalls.

In La Habra, along the Orange County-Los Angeles County border, city officials say they may have to order cutbacks this summer because of the drought.

The city, which has its own water company for its 11,000 customers, gets 50% of its water supply from wells in the San Gabriel Valley in Los Angeles County. Those wells are drying up because of the drought, City Manager Lee Risner said.

“I’m really concerned,” Risner said. “I’m going to be recommending some water conservation proposals to the City Council that it could enact. These would mainly be voluntary.”

And in San Clemente, at the far southern end of the county, city officials already have enacted a water-rationing law. But the ordinance, passed in February, actually stems from the city’s lack of adequate water pipes rather than a dearth of available water.

The Tri-Cities Municipal Water District main reservoir, which provides water to the city, only has one pipe to bring in fresh supplies. Voluntary water conservation measures were put into effect last August.

Since a second intake pipeline will not be finished until summer 1991, the City Council earlier this year enacted measures to cut down water usage this summer. An ordinance passed Feb. 7 outlaws daytime lawn watering between June 15 and Sept. 15, and allows nighttime watering only every other day. Daytime watering is considered more wasteful because there is faster evaporation from the sun, water district officials said. The city law also bans installation of new landscaping during those summer months.

Penalties, under the ordinance, are a warning for first-time violation and a $100 fine for second-time offenders. A second ordinance enacted Feb. 21 puts a 50% price increase on water bills to residents and businesses using more than 650 gallons of water a day.

Several water districts in the county have dormant rationing laws on the books that could be revived. Both the Municipal Water District of Orange County and the Orange County Water District, the county’s two largest districts, enacted rationing laws during California’s last drought in 1976 and 1977. The laws restrict watering outdoors and make it illegal to leave hoses on with water running into the street.

Several cities also empower their police and water inspectors to shut off someone’s water if they see a hose left on with water running into a street or gutter.

“The biggest time for violations is in the summer,” said Glenn Balogh, a water inspector for the City of Westminster. “People like to water.”

Even during the 1976-77 drought, though, officials said the existence of Orange County’s underwater lake managed to stave off the need for any widespread rationing programs. During that time, cities and districts above the underground lake relied upon their subterranean supplies while allowing their imported water to go to needier places, such as South County.

They say they are prepared to do the same in this drought.

“We still could provide water for all our customers,” said Wayne Osborne, public works director for the city of Fountain Valley, which draws 70% of its water from wells drilled into the lake.

The lake is immense. Stretching from El Toro to Yorba Linda, and westward all the way to the coast, it ranges in depth from 75 feet to 4,000 feet and contains an estimated 12 million acre-feet of water. An acre-foot is about 326,000 gallons, or the amount of water an average family of five uses in one year.

Since Orange County uses about 500,000 acre-feet of water annually, the underground supply would seem adequate. But Jim Van Haun, a spokesman for the Orange County Water District, which manages the ground-water basin, said that only about 1 million acre-feet of that underground supply are usable at any given time.

That is because the rest is either too deep to reach by drilling, or its quality does not meet drinking water standards, Van Haun said. Some of the water is colored from remnants of ancient redwood forests, he said. The water that is usable is drawn from wells that are drilled as deep as 1,200 feet.

It is the Orange County Water District’s job to dole out what usable water is left, making sure the underground lake’s level never dips so low that seawater is able to seep in and contaminate it, Van Haun said. The agency was formed by the state Legislature in 1933 to protect and manage the underground water supply, and since then has earned a national reputation for conservation and management.

Typically, Van Haun added, the district dispenses about 250,000 acre-feet of underground water a year to its service area of 1.9 million residents, and tries to replenish what has been taken out with natural runoff from the Santa Ana River as well as imported supplies.

But since 1983, Van Haun said, there has not been enough precipitation to restock the lake to adequate levels, causing it to drop by the rate of 50,000 to 60,000 acre-feet per year. So far, the lake has been drawn down by about 400,000 acre-feet. Van Haun said the level could drop by 750,000 acre-feet before water district officials would become concerned.

“Overall, we’re still in pretty good shape,” Van Haun said.

But Sprague of the Municipal Water District of Orange County warns that the county should not become complacent about its ground-water supply because future imported supplies are severely threatened.

No new storage facilities have been developed along the State Water Project aqueduct from Northern California in 20 years, Sprague said. And, he said, Southern California’s share of Colorado River water has been sharply curtailed by increased shipments to Arizona. The county’s population, in the meantime, has increased from 1.8 million to about 2.3 million over the past decade.

Orange County residents, therefore, must practice conservation in order to get through the dry years ahead, he said. Toward that end, the Municipal Water District has been leading a countywide educational effort for better conservation. In schools and at civic forums, district officials preach the need to water less. The district also has sponsored forums on xeriscape landscaping, which emphasizes use of drought-tolerant plants.

“We are at a point where we will have certain levels of (voluntary or mandatory) rationing maybe every other year for the next 15 years,” Sprague said. “At this point, we are asking people not to waste water.”

While most cities and water districts plan to adopt water conservation ordinances at meetings during April, some of the smaller agencies are ahead of the pack.

The El Toro Water District, for example, adopted a voluntary water conservation program in 1988 to reduce consumption by 10%. The program asks all customers to adjust sprinklers and irrigation equipment to avoid overspray and runoff, and advises against watering lawns in the middle of summer days when it is hottest.

Last year, the Moulton Niguel Water District in rapidly growing Laguna Niguel asked local developers and homeowners associations to water slopes, parks and street dividers every other day rather than every day.

Reclaiming used water is another conservation method being pursued in the county. The Moulton Niguel district, for instance, has constructed two plants designed to reclaim up to 6 million gallons of water a day. The reclaimed water is used for landscaping, toilet flushes and other nondrinking purposes, district general manager John Foley said.

The Irvine Ranch Water District, similarly, has refined its reclamation capabilities to the point that recycled water is being used for nondrinking purposes in the new high-rise office buildings being built in the Irvine area.

The Orange County Water District also uses reclaimed water to help push back any seawater that threatens to intrude into the county’s underground lake. Minton, the state water conservation officer, said Orange County’s reclamation effort ranks among the most progressive in the state.

“Reclaimed water is generally a very reliable source during a drought,” Minton said.

The conservation ordinances now being adopted in Orange County empower cities and water districts to embark on three courses of action to conserve water, Sprague said. The first phase is voluntary. The second is forced cutbacks, including restricted outdoor watering. And the third is rationing. Some districts are also considering imposing a surcharge on excessive water use, as the Serrano Irrigation District in Villa Park did during the last drought.

Sprague said that the need for these extreme measures, countywide, will depend on whether California experiences a fifth straight dry year, as well as on the public’s compliance with the requests for 10% cutbacks.

“We can get by this year,” Sprague said. “But if we don’t do some conservation, all we’re doing is setting ourselves up for a real disaster next year, perhaps with rationing at some level.”

But most local water officials are confident that the voluntary cutbacks will work. During the 1976-77 drought, for instance, customers of the Laguna Beach County Water District voluntarily reduced consumption 30%.

And in January, the Yorba Linda Water District had to ask its 19,000 customers to cut back water use by 50% while a key water pipeline through the area was shut down for repairs. The customers responded with a 35% curtailment of use, a figure which district officials said was enough for the repair project.

“We are very confident that people will respond again if given the facts,” said Mike Robinson, assistant administrator for the district.

Times staff writer Bill Billiter and correspondents Tom McQueeney and Laura Michaelis contributed to this story.

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