OJAI VALLEY : Board Backs State Water Importation

The Ventura River County Water District supports the idea of bringing state water into the Ojai Valley to protect ground water and accommodate growth, board President Harold B. Parker said Wednesday.

The district board unanimously adopted a resolution recently stating “the increasing population of the area we serve will continue to escalate” the need for importing water from the California Aqueduct.

“We don’t have enough water to go around now,” Parker said. “Our wells are at a very low ebb. We’re getting to the bottom of the barrel.”

The district draws water from two wells in the Ventura River basin and buys reservoir water from Casitas Municipal Water District to serve 2,100 customers from Ojai to Casitas Springs.

“We’re going to need more water for people to continue the lifestyle they moved here for,” Parker said. “We already had one well go bad last year.”

The well was pumping air and couldn’t be used, General Manager Charles Curtis said. The second well will have to be shut down soon, he said.

The board’s resolution encourages other water purveyors to support a plan to save local aquifers from potential overdrafting.

It stops short, however, of endorsing a specific plan for conveying water 42 miles from the aqueduct to the Casitas system. Parker said his district, like Casitas, is waiting for several studies to be completed before backing one of several methods under review.

The larger Casitas district, which also has a rising demand for Lake Casitas water, has not asked for its State Water Project entitlement of 5,000 annual acre-feet of water for the Ojai Valley. Officials said it could be several years before the water is imported, if they decide to ask for it.