THE DROUGHT : District Sued Over PromiseWater It Promised to Farms in ’58

The future of up to 100 Camarillo-area growers could be in jeopardy if a Ventura County water district is not forced to deliver the water it promised 32 years ago, backers of a lawsuit filed Friday say.

The United Water Conservation District based in Santa Paula should be ordered to deliver an average of about 8,000 acre-feet a year to the Pleasant Valley County Water District to comply with a contract signed in 1958, Pleasant Valley alleges in a suit filed in Ventura County Superior Court.

Pleasant Valley, which supplies water for about 100 farms covering 12,000 acres, depends on United Water for a little more than half of its annual average supply, said Thomas Vujovich, president of the Pleasant Valley board of directors.

“Farmland is only valuable for the crops grown there, and if you don’t have the water, you can’t grow the crops,” said Vujovich, a vegetable grower on the Oxnard Plain. “The only way to keep agriculture a viable entity is to have the water and keep it affordable. Otherwise, we’ll be a dust bowl with tumbleweeds.”

United notified Pleasant Valley in April that it would halt the annual supplies, citing a 1981 agreement with the state to use its available water to recharge underground water basins to prevent seawater from continuing to intrude into the basins. Seawater intrusion was caused by years of pumping more water out than was replenished by rainfall or mountain runoff.

However, Pleasant Valley officials say United can’t nullify a 1958 agreement to comply with an agreement signed 23 years later.

In July, the state criticized United for not moving swiftly enough to stop seawater intrusion.

Don Dorman, United’s assistant general manager, said the state has assigned priorities to United for the use of surface water taken from the Santa Clara River.

“Those priorities dictate that the surface water must go to recharge the basins when the district is in severe drought conditions,” Dorman said. “Those conditions currently exist.”

As a water conservation district, United’s job is to recharge ground-water supplies and regulate pumping from the 850 wells in its jurisdiction, which spreads over much of the Oxnard Plain and up the Santa Clara River Valley through Piru.

To pay for its conservation efforts, United charges a fee for each acre-foot pumped out of wells in its jurisdiction.

Using funds provided by the state and federal government after United’s 1981 agreement with the state, the district built the Freeman Diversion dam on the Santa Clara River to capture water running to the sea.

When the dam is complete late this year, it will divert water to spreading grounds in El Rio, where the water will sink into basins. United says the water will replenish supplies in shallow and deep-water basins, such as the Fox Canyon Aquifer that serves Pleasant Valley.

But water diverted into United’s spreading grounds does not reach the Fox Canyon Aquifer, Pleasant Valley contends.

Pleasant Valley was formed in the early 1950s to supply non-potable water for crops in an area bounded by the Ventura Freeway to the north, the Pacific Coast Highway to the south, Lewis Road to the east and Wood Road on the west.

That means that growers pay pumping fees to United but receive no benefits, Vujovich said.

The 1958 agreement provided that United would supply a percentage of available water supplies to Pleasant Valley each year, Dorman said. In return, Pleasant Valley agreed to pump less water.