Ojai Council to Consider Ban on Drilling Wells : Resources: The moratorium is designed to give city officials time to prepare a water management plan.

The Ojai City Council will hold a public hearing Tuesday to consider banning the drilling of private water wells for at least six months.

The law would take effect immediately to prohibit further digging, drilling, sinking or deepening of any wells into the Ojai aquifer within the city limits.

“The intent of the ordinance is to do what we can to get a management plan for the basin,” City Manager Andrew Belknap said. “We have a significant water resource here and would like to see it gets used to the public benefit.”

The draft ordinance says that approving new wells threatens the health and safety of Ojai citizens by jeopardizing their long-range water supply.

Ojai officials have asked Ventura County to adopt a similar ban on new wells in the unincorporated areas of the Ojai Valley.

County Supervisor Maggie Erickson, whose district includes Ojai, said she is unaware of any proposal to ban wells throughout the valley.

“I’d certainly support something to protect the water,” Erickson said.

Supervisor Susan K. Lacey, whose district includes much of the Ojai Valley, could not be reached for comment.

Ron Singleton, general manager of the Meiners Oaks County Water District, said he supports a valleywide ban on new wells. The small water company, which taps the Ventura River basin for its well water, turned to the Casitas Municipal Water District this summer for the first supplemental supplies in a decade.

He said people who drill wells have a false sense of security about the water supply.

“They think they’re hitting a gold mine, but no one knows how long it will last,” he said.

Interest has revived in reactivating old wells or drilling new ones since the Casitas Water District declared a water shortage in April and imposed a one-year delay on new or expanded service.

Casitas officials said the temporary moratorium on new hookups, which could be extended beyond April if the shortage continues, allows time to assess how the total water supplies in the district can be managed to meet the demand.

The Casitas district includes Ojai Valley, the Rincon area and western Ventura.

New construction or crop expansion in the district is severely curtailed under the moratorium. Builders and ranchers who have been denied water service from Casitas or its 14 water agencies are looking to wells as a way to circumvent the moratorium, Bel-knap said.

But officials say further tapping into the aquifer jeopardizes the water district’s ability to assess how much water is available.

Ojai’s ban was proposed as an urgency ordinance, Belknap said, as a way to prevent a rush for permits.

City officials said there is one pending permit application that could be directly affected by the ban, but the applicant said he has withdrawn his request.

The Ojai basin was the valley’s main water supply until a dry period in the 1950s when ranchers joined with the Bureau of Reclamation to create Lake Casitas as a supplementary water supply. However, higher electrical and pumping costs soon made it cheaper for ranchers to get their water from Casitas, and many wells have remained inactive.

Casitas General Manager John Johnson compares the gravel-filled aquifer to an old washbowl without a drain. When it fills up, which historically occurs every three years, it contains 68,000 acre-feet of water. The overflow moves into the Ventura River and washes out to sea.

Casitas is exploring ways to capture the runoff and to better manage the basin supply, officials said.