Water Board Closes Tap on Permits

Restrictions on water use have become a fact of life during the past year for the 1,200 residents of Green Valley.

Last summer, the local water company asked homeowners in the rural Antelope Valley town to impose water-use limits on themselves. Last month, after those voluntary measures failed to stem a continuing drop in the town’s water supply, the company raised the price of water to give residents an added incentive to conserve.

This week the Green Valley Water District instituted the most severe water-use restrictions to date. The water company’s governing board voted unanimously Wednesday night to stop issuing water meter permits, in effect ensuring that for the indefinite future no new houses or other buildings can be constructed in the town.

Nearly everyone in Green Valley agrees that the severity of the town’s water shortage justifies the district’s decision to deny building permits to newcomers, water board officials and residents said.

The water line in one of the town’s five wells dropped from 25 feet to 95 feet below ground level between 1987 and April, 1990, said David Phillips, vice president of the water company. That is typical of the drop in the water line in Green Valley’s four other wells, he said.

Some town residents disagree, however, over a clause in the new measure that prevents the owners of 31 lots on which water meters already have been installed from building on their property.

Although those landowners already have paid the district a fee to install water meters, the new clause denies them special water permits required by the Los Angeles County Fire Department before construction may begin, Phillips said.

Phillips said the water company board consulted with lawyers several months ago when it was contemplating the decision not to issue additional “fire flow” permits. The lawyers told the board that in the event of a possible legal challenge, the board would have to “show that they had done everything possible to conserve water before imposing restrictions,” Phillips said.

Phillips said the worsening of the town’s water shortage despite intermediate water-use restrictions instituted June 1 justified the more severe restrictions.

The earlier measures barred residents from hosing down their sidewalks, washing their cars, or using sprinklers or hoses to water their lawns and plants. It also limited water use by each four-person household to 2,000 cubic feet--14,960 gallons--per two-month billing cycle and imposed a graduated fee scale to encourage customers to use less water.

The district was forced to institute the more severe restrictions, Phillips said, because the water shortage became more acute in the past month. “The community is responding,” he said. “But as we project this out farther, if we don’t get any rain, we could be out of water for all intents and purposes by next summer.”

Carl Blevins, a general contractor and Green Valley resident who has built about 15 houses in the town over the past decade, said he supported the limits imposed by the board this week. “The only issue I don’t agree with the board on is the high penalty” imposed June 1 on those who violate the water-use restrictions, he said. “I’m a firm believer in education. The town should be educated into how to save water.”

Other Green Valley residents, however, said even this week’s limits will not solve the problem. A clause in the new restrictions that will allow the district to issue fire flow permits to landowners who show hardship is “an easy out,” said Jack Ameluxen, one of 151 residents to sign a petition calling on the board to issue more severe water-use limits.

Ameluxen said his group also wants a rule explicitly prohibiting landowners from digging their own wells--a way to avoid the water-use restrictions that he said at least three town residents have tried.

Dave Vannatta, planning deputy to County Supervisor Mike Antonovich, said several Green Valley residents have asked him whether the county has the power to bar residents from drilling their own wells. He said that he has asked county lawyers to examine the question and that he should have an answer today.

Some Green Valley residents think those who signed the petition are making unreasonable demands.

“These people are trying to put moratoriums on things and stop building,” said Saveria VanderGalien, proprietor of the Green Valley Inn, the town’s only restaurant, and owner of the Green Valley Store, the community’s only market. “That could devastate somebody.”