Measure Seeks OK for Pipe Bonds : Election: Measure F asks voters served by the South Coast Water District to authorize an $8.5-million issue to pay for a new pipeline.

On June 5, directors of the South Coast Water District will be watching election returns with almost as much anticipation as they have been watching the skies for badly needed rain.

Their attention will be riveted on the outcome for Measure F, which asks voters served by the water district to authorize issuing $8.5 million in bonds to pay for construction of a seven-mile water pipeline.

The district’s existing pipeline is so outmoded that it can carry only one-third of the water needed for an area that has 15,000 customers in south Laguna Beach and north Dana Point. The district has been making do by borrowing water from its neighbors, but district officials have been served notice that the spigot from that source will be shut off next year.

With the state in a four-year drought that shows no indication of ending soon, South Coast Water must build a new pipeline, said Raymond Miller, district general manager.

“We have no choice,” Miller said. “It’s getting awfully thirsty down here.”

Voters will not be making a decision on the pipeline itself. The need for a greater pipeline capacity was deemed so critical that last fall, the district Board of Directors authorized the construction at whatever cost.

What voters will determine, then, is how the pipeline will be paid for. According to Miller and other Measure F proponents, it is estimated that a bond issue would cost water users 40% less than a water-rate increase, the only other funding alternative.

Under Measure F, the property taxes of homeowners in the district would be raised to support the bond. For a homeowner whose property is valued at $300,000, for instance, about $9 per month would be added to the tax bill in 1991. The amount decreases each year, so that by the end of the 10th year, the cost would be about $6 per month.

Despite its involving a property-tax increase, Measure F is receiving widespread support in both Laguna Beach and Dana Point. Numerous homeowners’ associations have endorsed it, as have the Dana Point City Council, the South Coast Medical Hospital Foundation and the Capistrano Unified School District.

The measure, in fact, has attracted such little controversy that there is no argument against it on the June 5 sample ballot.

The argument in favor, on the other hand, pulls no punches in warning voters about the severity of the water situation:

“We don’t yet have a water crisis . . . but we will if we don’t act soon,” reads the argument written by Dana Point Councilman Mike Eggers and four other South County civic leaders.

The argument also warns of water shortages such as those being experienced in San Clemente, where city officials have ordered water rationing because of the limited capacity of the single pipeline that carries imported water to the city.

Like the city of San Clemente, the South Coast Water District is wholly dependent on water imported from distant mountain ranges by the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, the major water supplier for the region. Cities in northern and central parts of Orange County, on the other hand, are far less susceptible to drought because they sit atop a huge underground lake from which they can pump water.

The Metropolitan Water District laid a pipeline through Laguna Canyon in 1971 to connect with the Laguna Beach and Dana Point areas, Miller said. But, he said, that area, along with the rest of South County, grew so quickly that its capacity was soon overtaxed.

To help accommodate the spiraling demand, Miller said, the district last year began building the massive South County pipeline, which will channel water from a collection point in Lake Forest to a terminus near San Clemente.

When that pipeline is completed sometime next year, Miller said, his district wants to have its new pipeline in place to divert some of the water north to Dana Point and Laguna Beach.

The Tri-Cities Water District of San Clemente wants to go in on the same pipeline so that it can take water to that city too. Tri-Cities, for its part, has helped to defray some of the construction costs.

Construction of the South Coast Water District pipeline is expected to begin in August, with the target plate for completion being the summer after. Until then, water district officials are asking customers to cut consumption by 10%. Officials also are stretching supplies by using reclaimed sewage water on landscaping.