West Issue Are Water Surcharges a Good Idea?

In April, the city of Ventura limited single-family houses to a monthly average of 296 gallons of water a day and multiple-family residences to 196 gallons. Businesses must use 20% less water than last year. Violators will be billed at higher rates for extra water. Are these penalties necessary and fair?

Alan Godley

Coordinator, Blue Dolphin

Environmental Awareness Center The issue of water conservation should not even be an issue of fine or penalty. It should be a responsibility. People should realize that we live in a desert, and that we don’t know how long this drought will go on--another year, five years, maybe even 15 years longer than it has already. I don’t think people think this drought is serious enough. Businesses, especially agriculture, are really missing the boat by not using partly treated water. It seems to me a crying shame, with the air quality such as it is, to allow fruit trees to die while we’re flushing hundreds of gallons of water a day! Because there haven’t been any real hardships, people just think like spoiled children. They feel we can rely on state water or future dams and yet we’re not positive that the water will be there. If we looked at other countries, for instance certain islands where the water is only on for 12 hours out of 48, or in the evening, then we might start treating it as the precious commodity it is.

Lindsay Nielson

Real estate lawyer Certainly the water ordinance does require an element of penalty. But the perception on the part of those who are being subjected to these penalties is that our leaders, for their own political reasons, don’t wish to seek immediate, and/or long-term solutions to the water problem. Many people in this community believe that the city leaders are utilizing water to fulfill their own agendas of no growth. If you don’t solve the water problem, then you have a very good reason for saying “no” to future growth. I believe that government should be elected to solve the problems of the community, and that growth, which is the big issue all over California, is a natural phenomenon. There are many people who believe that the city management has failed to foresee that our local ground-water supplies would eventually not service the community. The city paid something like $8 million for rights to connect into state water projects. We’ve been doing this for 15 years and received nothing for it.

Robert McCord

Board of directors chairman, AQUA (Assn. for Quality Water Alternatives) I think AQUA favors a form of water rationing as a short-term solution until such time as there are other water resources available. The current plan we do not favor. When we formed into small communities and built towns, we gave up our water rights. We all stopped drilling, taking our wagons down to the creek. Government has assumed this role for years. I think the people of this community are trying to conserve. The problem is the city has an obligation to find quality water alternatives and they’re not doing it. We do not favor continuation of this water conservation program past December. I watched with horror earlier this summer as my teen-ager came home from college, my mother came to stay for two months, my niece and three children, came for six weeks. We monitored showers and took other measures. Do I want to do this past December? No, I don’t, and I don’t think I should be required to when government is sitting up there and not doing a damn thing to get extra water.

Gary Tuttle

Ventura city councilman I don’t think anything about the water crisis is really fair. And unfortunately, fair isn’t as much the issue as conservation. We tried to make it fairer by making sure you could average your month-to-month use and be rebated if your early total was within the allocation. We have also, in order to allow businesses to grow, allowed them more water once they have done everything possible to make sure they’re using their water 100% efficiently. Then they can apply for more water. So fairness is not the issue. As far as doing everything we can to ensure adequate supplies, the facts say of course we are doing everything we can! In the last few months, we did a search and found about 7,000 acre-feet per year and we’re bringing it on-line. We’re spending $13 million on a water system because in the past, the planning wasn’t there for pumping. I think in the beginning days of the ordinance we heard, “Gee, we can’t do it.” A lot of people are finding that they can do it.

Bob Herron

President, Ventura Marina chapter,

Golden State Mobile Home Owners League

Yes, I think the penalties are probably necessary and fair. I think the City Council had to do something. Santa Barbara was panicking. We probably had a little more water than they did. I think the City Council spent a lot of time in indecision and I’m not sure they’ve decided yet what to do for the long term. So I think some kind of decision like this was forced upon them. Here at the mobile home park, we don’t have any way of measuring the usage of any particular mobile home site, so the manager, in her little newsletter, has been commenting on water usage and offering tips to save it. She says we’re over allocation and we’d better do better. The penalty doesn’t affect us individually, but I suspect if we continue to be over the allocation, we could feel it personally. I think my wife and I are being a great deal more careful in conserving. We take shorter showers, and when I’m cooking, I never let the water just run. I used to wash my car regularly and now I just turn the hose on very low and knock some of the dust off.