Agency May Seek 10 Billion Gallons of Ground Water : Antelope Valley: The board’s vote comes despite fears that the pumping could increase cracking and sinking in the high desert.

The Antelope Valley’s largest water purveyor, facing a fifth year of severe drought, is planning a massive program of new ground-water pumping to make up for a threatened shortfall in state water deliveries to the area.

The action by the board of the Antelope Valley-East Kern Water Agency comes despite growing concern that existing ground-water pumping is causing the earth to crack and sink in some high desert areas, including Edwards Air Force Base.

Additionally, homeowner activists have questioned why water agencies continue to promise new water service to developers of thousands of planned residences against the backdrop of a looming water shortage. But water agency officials say it is not their role to try to restrain development.

By a 4-0 vote Tuesday night, the water agency’s board tentatively decided to try to buy nearly 10 billion gallons of ground water--up to 30,000 acre-feet--this year. A follow-up vote is scheduled Tuesday. The agency hopes to buy the water rights from farmers west of Lancaster and Palmdale who have their own wells. That amount would represent about two-thirds of the 47,000 acre-feet of water delivered by the agency in 1990.

The agency, which supplies about half the water used in the valley, normally buys it from the state and gets delivery via the California Aqueduct.

But state officials warned last week that the fifth year of drought may force them to drastically curtail normal water deliveries. Their plan calls for no agricultural water and only 30% of normal municipal deliveries through the state system if there is little or no rain by March.

Agency officials insisted that their massive plan for new ground-water pumping will not harm the valley or worsen soil subsidence. Board member Carl Hunter called it a temporary measure, and said it will use water that has been saved over the years when state water was available.

“Now we’re in a drought and we need to pull that supply,” board member Andy Rutledge said. “That’s what we’ve been doing all these years by using state water is recharging our underground water supply for situations just such as this.”

A spokesman for the U.S. Geological Survey cautioned, however, that such a large pumping program could cause additional soil problems. Devin Galloway, a federal hydrologist, suggested that agency officials consider a monitoring program to measure any impacts from the pumping.

The survey has blamed falling ground-water levels at Edwards Air Force Base north of Lancaster for soil subsidence and cracking that has threatened the dry lake beds where the space shuttles land. The Geological Survey and others also believe that deep fissures found in Lancaster have the same cause.

The Antelope Valley agency, which sells its state water to water retailers, does not pump ground water. But many local water companies do, relying on their wells and the agency’s supply to meet customers’ demands. If the Antelope Valley agency does not pump the ground water, officials said, other water providers will.