LOCAL ELECTIONS: SAN GABRIEL VALLEY WATER BOARDS : Environmentalists Join Fray in 3 Races

One century after San Gabriel Valley residents fought among themselves with dynamite and rifle blasts over the precious commodity of water in the semi-desert foothills, a new kind of water war has emerged.

Environmentalists, riding a wave of concern about the planet’s resources and upset with severe ground water pollution in the region, are launching a full-scale campaign to win seats on water boards in three districts.

With more than 100 water-rights holders, suppliers and districts in the San Gabriel Valley, the job of a water board member is critical to maintaining order among about 30 communities with more than 1.5 million people.

Coping with massive ground water contamination that dates to World War II makes the jobs even more crucial--particularly since there is no one governmental agency with the authority to oversee and finance the cleanup.

If local environmentalists manage to mirror the success of the larger activist movement sweeping the country, the effect could be felt statewide or even nationwide, experts said.

“This will stimulate a debate over what water agencies are--growth-stimulating (pro-development) agencies or what I’d call environmental agencies,” said UCLA faculty member and author Robert Gottlieb. “We’re entering into a new period where . . . water politics (are becoming) a significant part of environmental politics.”

Overall, there are 16 candidates running in six races in three water districts that sprawl from El Monte to Claremont and Diamond Bar. Of those, candidates in five races were identified by environmentalists as showing the promise to regard water as a natural resource that needs protection.

The Sierra Club, in its first such foray into San Gabriel Valley water elections, last week announced its endorsements for two incumbents and three newcomers. “We have incumbents that have failed miserably to deal with the ground water problem,” the Sierra Club’s Maxine Leichter said.

But officials of the water establishment say the environmentalists are naive to suggest that a quick solution awaits one of the West’s worst water pollution problems, which could cost an estimated $1 billion to remedy.

In addition, the officials say, if newcomers win at the polls on Nov. 6, cleanup could be delayed simply because novices do not understand the complicated issues surrounding water supply and water quality in the San Gabriel Basin, placed in 1984 on the federal Superfund list of environmental priorities.

“There will be a real vacuum if all these (environmentalists) are elected,” said Linn Magoffin, one of the San Gabriel Valley’s top water officials and the head of the Main San Gabriel Basin Watermaster, a nine-member board that oversees water supplies.

But environmentalists complain that the region’s water boards are typical of California water districts: hidden from public view and essentially run by a “water-business fraternity,” members whose vocation or avocation is supporting the lucrative water industry.

In many cases, Leichter complained, board members handpick their successors when they retire. The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors then routinely makes appointments in uncontested elections.

In the San Gabriel Valley, where chemical pollution is a pressing problem nearly everywhere except Pasadena and Pomona, environmentalists have targeted these races: the Upper San Gabriel Valley Municipal Water District, where two seats are at stake; the San Gabriel Valley Municipal Water District, with one seat open, and the Three Valleys Municipal Water District, which has three openings.

The districts do everything from setting water treatment policy to setting prices. They can influence water quality and water supply.

The five-member board of the Upper District, formed in 1960, has held contested elections only twice, in 1968 and in 1988.

“They’ve been on these boards 20 to 30 years,” Leichter said of members, “and people who live in the water districts don’t even know there is a water district.”

This fall, they will probably find out.

From Kiwanis Clubs to town meeting halls to front doorsteps of suburban streets in eastern Los Angeles County, candidates are spreading their views. They are talking about arcane water controversies such as water blending (mixing highly polluted ground water with purer water to meet state and federal drinking water standards) and the more easily comprehensible yet equally debatable charges of conflict of interest.

Nowhere are battle lines drawn more clearly than in the race pitting Robert H. Nicholson Jr., seeking reelection to the Upper District, against Anthony R. Fellow, a Cal State Fullerton faculty member and environmental writer.

Nicholson, chairman of the board of the El Monte-based San Gabriel Valley Water Co., heads three water companies that supply 45,000 customers in Los Angeles County, 30,000 in San Bernardino County and 45,000 in Phoenix.

Fellow, 40, argues that Nicholson has no business serving on a water board, which sets the price of water that is imported by the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California and then delivered to local water companies.

There is no conflict, counters Nicholson, 57. The interests of the Upper District and his company are the same, he said: “We want to supply the best possible water at the lowest possible price.”

In another environmentally charged race, community activist Carol A. Montano is challenging Donald F. Clark, one of the pillars of the region’s water establishment. Clark has served on the San Gabriel Valley Municipal Water District board for more than 20 years without an opponent or election.

“If he is so informed, so dedicated, he would have cleaned up our water a long time ago,” Montano charged. “It’s an injustice.”

Clark, 66, who also serves as the chairman of the newly created Main San Gabriel Basin Water Quality Authority, replied: “It’s easy to fix the blame on somebody else. It’s another thing to fix the problem.”

If elected, Montano, 43, said she would aggressively pursue making polluters pay for cleanup.

So far, no polluters have paid any cleanup costs. Federal and state officials, however, are attempting to track down those who may have caused the contamination from commercial and industrial solvents and degreasing agents used by aerospace industries as well as small businesses during the last 40 years. Local water boards have not made such tracking an issue.

“We know we’re not going to clean it up completely--in two weeks, two years or maybe ever,” Clark said. “But to imply that we haven’t done anything in the last 10 years is an indication the environmentalists don’t know what we’ve really done.”

Incumbents have much to offer, said Al Wittig, facing four opponents, his first in 10 years, on the Upper District board. “It would be a shame if all the experience I have gained over the years in Sacramento and Washington . . . were lost because I was defeated,” said Wittig, 67, who plans an aggressive campaign.

But one of Wittig’s opponents--El Monte lawyer and environmentalist Marvin Cichy, a former three-term member of the Rosemead City Council--said, “(Voters) need to remove about everybody that serves on these boards.”

In the Three Valleys District, however, two incumbents--Muriel O’Brien and Paul E. Stiglich--have garnered the environmentalists’ endorsement. But because only a portion of Three Valleys’ territory is affected by the San Gabriel Basin’s water contamination, cleaning up chemical pollution is not as much of a campaign issue there.

No matter who wins, the friction raised between environmentalists and the Old Guard is bound to be beneficial because it will make water boards more accountable, said Gottlieb, himself a former board member of the Metropolitan Water District.

“There is a new dynamic,” he said, “ . . . a new phenomenon.”