VENTURA : City Orders Impact Report on Pipeline

The Ventura City Council took a crucial step Monday toward connecting the city with the State Water Project by ordering an environmental impact report on a proposed pipeline.

On a 7-to-0 vote, the council approved an agreement with the Casitas Municipal Water District to co-fund a $275,000 environmental study. The study will examine the environmental impact of building a 42-mile pipeline along the Santa Clara River to Lake Castaic, one of the State Water Project reservoirs.

Even Councilman Gary Tuttle, a pipeline opponent, voted in favor of the study, which will also look at alternatives to the pipeline. “I’m betting that once the information is out, the people will reject the pipeline in favor of reverse osmosis,” Tuttle said, referring to the option of building a desalination plant.

The study, which would take up to a year to complete, is the first step in bringing the pipeline, a process that experts predict will take five years.

The pipeline has been at issue in Ventura since 1964, when the city began making payments to the state for the right to import water.

Since then, the city has spent $7.3 million on water rights but has yet to buy any water. Opponents of the project criticize it because they say the pipeline will encourage growth.

The city is in the fourth year of a drought. Earlier this year, it declared a water shortage emergency and imposed a mandatory rationing program.

Council members said they will wait for the environmental results before committing to the pipeline, which would cost $80 million to $120 million, of which the city would pay about half. Two water companies that serve mostly agricultural customers would pay the other half.