Water Pipeline Backers Begin Petition Drive

Local business interests who want to bring an outside water supply to Ventura say they are encouraged by the surprisingly strong showing of a candidate who proposed connecting drought-starved Santa Barbara to the California Aqueduct.

“The election in Santa Barbara clearly signals that people vote in their best interest, and our interests lie in obtaining quality water from the state system,” said Robert McCord, chairman of the Assn. for Quality Water Alternatives.

AQWA supporters, which include many of the city’s commercial, real estate and development interests, began collecting signatures Monday for a November ballot initiative asking the city to build a $120-million pipeline from Ventura to the state aqueduct in Lake Piru or at Castaic Lake.

The aqueduct transports vast quantities of water from Northern California to the arid southern part of the state. But some cities, such as Santa Barbara and Ventura, have not hooked up to the system, though Ventura has spent about $12 million over the years to reserve the right to obtain the water.

Much of the city’s water now comes from dwindling local sources, including wells, Lake Casitas and the Ventura River.

State water opponents, who include environmentalists and slow-growth activists, say they believe that connecting Ventura to the state water system will create runaway development. They said Friday that the ballot initiative will be defeated and pointed to pro-growth election setbacks in Oxnard and southern Ventura County this week as barometers of voter sentiment.

“These are the same pro-growth people who were defeated in the Oxnard tax initiative and the county supervisor race, and they will be defeated again,” said Councilman Gary Tuttle, an avowed pipeline opponent. A 5% utility tax proposal was defeated easily in Oxnard, and 4th District Supervisor Madge L. Schaefer was edged out by a political newcomer, environmental candidate Maria VanderKolk.

But AQWA members draw hope from the showing of dark horse Steve Malachowski, who received 47% of the vote against environmentalist incumbent Tom Rodgers in the Santa Barbara supervisorial race Tuesday. Malachowski, a newcomer to Santa Barbara politics, campaigned almost exclusively on the state water issue and called his opponent a “water wimp” for refusing to support state water importation.

Santa Barbara is facing the most acute water shortage in the state. Residents have been forced to cut water consumption by 40% and lawn watering has been banned in that city.

AQWA members believe that a similar future is in store for Ventura unless the city builds the pipeline as soon as possible. Malachowski’s strong performance, despite accepting developer contributions in traditionally anti-growth Santa Barbara, gives AQWA’s fledgling ballot campaign a shot in the arm, members said.

“I think people will react the same way here as they did in Santa Barbara once they start getting higher water bills for less water,” said Jim Barroca, executive director of the Greater Ventura Chamber of Commerce.

On Wednesday, the chamber sent out ballot petitions to its 1,700 members.

Bill Cooper, spokesman for the Ventura Board of Realtors, said 85 realtors are collecting signatures. “Our goal is to get 100 people out there, and we’ll have that by the end of the week,” he said.

AQWA has printed 5,000 petitions and 2,000 “We Need State Water” bumper stickers. In addition, McCord said, AQWA will place newspaper ads this week urging residents to support the initiative. He said AQWA has collected 700 to 1,000 signatures since Monday and raised more than $2,000.

Given the type of support he already has received, McCord said his group will easily collect the 7,468 signatures needed by June 26 to place the pipeline initiative on the November ballot.

But Tuttle, who favors building a desalination plant instead of importing water, said AQWA will be defeated despite its “well-financed media blitz.”

In Oxnard, a ballot initiative to raise utility taxes was defeated by a grass-roots campaign that was outspent by a ratio of 9 to 1. Most of the financial support for the tax increase came from out-of-town developers.

In Ventura’s 4th Supervisorial District, which stretches from Port Hueneme to Newbury Park, incumbent Schaefer suffered a stunning upset at the hands of VanderKolk, a virtual unknown. VanderKolk repeatedly accused Schaefer of being pro-development.

AQWA members counter that water importation has nothing to do with growth.

“Whether you are a developer or an environmentalist, Ventura residents are interested in the best possible source of quality water,” McCord said. “And the state water pipeline is the building block to any sound water policy.”