State May Take Charge of Seawater Fight : Pollution: The local conservation district is losing its struggle to counteract intrusion under the Oxnard Plain.

State water authorities are threatening to take over the job of cleaning up underground water supplies in the Oxnard Plain unless a local water district can explain why it has failed to stop seawater intrusion into the area, officials disclosed Wednesday.

In a letter dated July 6, the State Water Resources Control Board said it is deciding whether to revive a 1981 board action to appoint a water judge to decide how much water can be pumped from wells in the United Water Conservation District to halt the surge of seawater.

Seawater intrusion, first noticed in the Oxnard Plain during the 1920s, results when more water is pumped from underground pools than rainfall can replenish, a condition called overdrafting.

The water district agreed in a settlement contract that averted the threatened 1981 action to reverse by the year 2000 the overdrafting of two shallow underground pools known as the Mugu and Oxnard aquifers. The district agreed at that time to cap some wells that tapped those supplies and to instead drill wells into the deeper Fox Canyon Aquifer.

But overdrafting in the county has continued to worsen, W. Don Maughan, chairman of the Water Resources Control Board, said in a letter to the district.

Moreover, Maughan said, he is particularly concerned about recent reports that seawater has now reached the deep Fox Canyon Aquifer, previously believed to be a 100-year backup supply of drinking water for the county.

“Despite expenditures of approximately $15 million of public funds, it seems that the plan of local agencies to contain the seawater intrusion that the State Board accepted in lieu of proceeding with adjudication action is not proceeding in the time frame that was anticipated,” the letter states.

Maughan referred to $7 million in state money already provided to the district to drill deeper wells into the Fox Canyon underground pool, along with $8 million in federal funds to build the Freeman Diversion Dam in Saticoy.

The district’s Freeman Diversion Dam, to be completed in October, will trap water from the Santa Clara River and divert it into the underground pools beneath the Oxnard Plain. Four years of drought have kept the Santa Clara River and other county waterways dry, forcing the district to depend more than ever on underground supplies, district officials said.

“When it doesn’t rain and that’s your emergency supply, where else do you get it?” asked Don Dorman, assistant general manager of the United Water Conservation District.

Dorman said the district could still meet the goal of balancing pumping with replenished supplies by 2000 if the county gets normal rainfall.

“United has a number of aggressive projects to meet that goal,” he said. Dorman cited the Freeman project, which will bring an extra 12,500 acre-feet each year into underground water tables during normal rainfall years. The district has also called for its 5,000-acre-foot entitlement to state water, which it will begin receiving next fall.

As a water conservation district, United’s job is to recharge ground-water supplies and regulate pumping from wells in its jurisdiction, which spreads over much of the Oxnard Plain and up the Santa Clara River Valley. The district is doing the job to the extent possible during a drought, Dorman said.

But Carla Bard, an Ojai resident who served as chairwoman of the State Water Resources Control Board from 1979 to 1982, said the district has failed to develop one obvious solution to the seawater intrusion problem--using reclaimed water from area sewage treatment plants to replenish the underground pools.

“What has happened since 1981 has been business as usual,” Bard said. “They have capped the wells to the Oxnard and Mugu aquifers, but they have been pumping the hell out of the Fox Canyon.”

Dorman said that using reclaimed water is too expensive for now, but that the district plans to consider it in the next few years.

As a result of the 1981 settlement, United and other area water districts joined together to form the Groundwater Management Agency. That agency is considering an ordinance to reduce pumping on the Oxnard Plain by 25% over 18 years. But that timetable will not meet the goal to balance pumping and recharge by 2000, Maughan said.

He asked the district to send documents to the state board explaining the status of the district’s efforts to reverse the seawater problem. The state made a similar request in letters dated Jan. 11 and March 9.

Dorman downplayed the importance of Maughan’s letter.

“They just want to know what’s going on,” Dorman said.