OJAI VALLEY : Water District to Ask Public for Comment

The Casitas Municipal Water District decided Wednesday to hear public comment before voting whether to charge customers $500 and other fees to be placed on a waiting list for new hookups or additional water allotments.

The district’s board of directors will hold a public hearing on the proposal in August.

Under the proposal, a $500 application fee would be required along with an annual fee of $50 per acre-foot of water requested. Failure to pay the annual fee would result in the applicant being dropped from the list.

Casitas General Manager John Johnson said fees are necessary to cover administrative costs for keeping track of the applications and for investigating if applicants meet the new service criteria.

In response to the drought and increasing demands on the Lake Casitas reservoir, the board declared a water shortage emergency April 11 and ordered at least a one-year delay on approving new or additional water service requests.

The water company serves 2,800 customers and sells water wholesale to 14 other agencies, serving a total of 55,000 residents in the northern county.

Also, the board will decide how to allocate any new supplies of water, should they become available. The board’s water resources subcommittee has proposed that 44% of any new supplies be allocated for agricultural use. The remaining 56% would go for residential and industrial use. Also, no one applicant would receive an allocation of more than 10% of the total available new supply.

In some cases, applicants would have to prove that they have installed low-flow plumbing fixtures or have had a water audit of their irrigation methods before they could receive additional water.