THE DROUGHT CONSERVATION : Leaks May Get Everybody Out of the Pool

In the midst of a drought that has Ventura residents sacrificing their lawns to save water, Ventura High School has a pool that reportedly is leaking thousands of gallons of water a week.

The Ventura Unified School District Board of Trustees will discuss what to do about cracks in the pool shell and leaky underground pipes at a meeting tonight.

One recommendation from the district staff is to shut down the facility, while another is to repair the pool at a reported cost of $250,000.

Of priority, though, is determining how much water per day the pool is leaking. A study on the pool done by Santa Paula structural engineer W.D. (Bill) Crouch states that the pool is losing 1,500 to 2,000 gallons each day because of cracking in the concrete pool shell.

However, Ventura High School Principal Robert Cousar said Monday that figure may be erroneous, based on a conversation he heard between the school’s athletic director and one of the district’s maintenance workers.

The estimated water loss figure may be quite high Cousar said, although he isn’t sure exactly how much water is leaking from the pool. He said the unidentified worker indicated that the estimated water loss is only a preliminary figure.

Cousar admits, though, that any loss is a serious problem.

“In the face of what the city and its residents are going through, including me, I think it’s irresponsible to allow any water loss,” he said. “At this stage, it’s irresponsible, and that’s why it’s being addressed now.”

Ventura city officials said Monday afternoon that they will inspect the swimming pool as early as today, and if the leak is verified, the school will be cited under the city’s 1989 water waste ordinance.

“They will be cited, and they will have to repair it,” said Carol Green, spokeswoman for the Public Works Department.

Under the water waste ordinance, the first citation amounts to a warning. A second citation would cost the school $25, and the third $50.

But if a violator is cited a fourth time, the city would impose a flow restrictor, limiting water supply to as little as 1 gallon per minute, depending on the size of the pipeline that feeds the facility. Green said she didn’t know what kind of pipeline fed Ventura High School.

If the swimming pool is not repaired immediately, Green added, the school could also be found in violation of Ventura’s Mandatory Water Conservation Ordinance, adopted last April.

Under that ordinance, the school would be penalized four times the normal water rate for its excess use if it fails to reduce water consumption by 20% over the summer. Repeat violators are subject to fines of up to 10 times the normal rate for excess use.

The penalty phase of the ordinance will begin applying to the school as soon as it receives its next water bill, Green said.

School district officials said Monday that they are not sure yet how much they might be fined by the city under the new water rationing ordinance.

“We’ve not even received a notice” from the city, said Richard Welcher, assistant superintendent of finance. “In fact, we’ve been trying to contact them for several weeks, and they’re very difficult to get ahold of.”

Welcher said, though, that a penalty would hurt the financially troubled district.

“If we have to start paying fines, we’d have to close the pool,” he said.

According to the study by Crouch, Ventura High School’s pool is slowly sinking into the unstable ground beneath it, there is cracking and rupturing of the underground pipe systems, the pool shell’s steel support structure is rusting, and the water heating and filtration system is obsolete.

Crouch said the pool was built nearly 40 years ago and has been “settling every since. One end of the pool is now seven inches lower than the other end” because of the compacted soil.

“At the time the pool was built, around 1953, they didn’t believe in soil tests, as we do now, and I don’t think they realized how much it would sink,” he said. He said the facility is safe enough for continued use, although it would be ideal if the school built a new pool.

Building a new pool could cost the district $2 million, Welcher said. Rehabilitation funds would be easier to find, possibly from developers’ fees.

In the meantime, the pool’s problems may leave Ventura High’s championship water polo team high and dry next year, and the city of Ventura’s summer aquatics program at the school may have to be scrapped.

Closing the pool would have an enormous impact on the nearly 1,200 students who use the pool for physical education classes and athletics, Cousar said.

“The alternative would be to work with Ventura College,” he said, but even that would be difficult, because the college “has its own needs, and we could never duplicate” the aquatics programs provided by an on-campus pool.

The effects of closing the pool go even further, Cousar said. “Here we are, an oceanside school, and perhaps not able to insist on our students being able to swim.”

Cousar said the school might even lose students to Buena High School, the district’s other high school, if the pool closes.

“We’re trying to keep the two high schools basically the same, and if you eliminate a pool at one of them, then some students who want polo or swimming will want to go to the school with a pool,” he said.

Ventura High’s water polo team won the Channel League Championship last year.

Closing the pool would also hurt the summer aquatics program sponsored by the city of Ventura Recreation Department. The program at Ventura High School attracts about 500 people per summer.

Times staff writer Santiago O’Donnell contributed to this story.