Farmers Get Reprieve on Water Fines : Irrigation: Agency backs away from ordinance that proposed penalties for growers.

Faced with objections from Ventura County farmers, water officials backed off Friday from an ordinance that would have fined farmers for wasting water.

Directors of the Fox Canyon Groundwater Management Agency had directed their staff last month to write an ordinance that would fine growers up to $1,000 a day for wasting water.

But provisions of the ordinance--which defined waste as using sprinklers during the middle of the day when evaporation is highest, or over-irrigating so that water runs off fields--drew such strong criticism at a meeting Friday that board members changed their direction, at least temporarily.

They declined to set a hearing date for the anti-waste ordinance, which officials said was unprecedented in the state, and formed a committee to study whether a new ordinance is needed to conserve water during the fifth year of a statewide drought.

An existing ordinance, which requires ground-water users to reduce pumping by 25% by 2010, could be enough to eliminate waste, board Chairman Lynn E. Maulhardt said. If the committee determines that the existing ordinance is not sufficient to stop agricultural waste, the ground-water agency will reconsider a new law, he said.

“It’s better to put the time and energy up front than to pass a bad piece of legislation,” said Maulhardt, who is also a grower and a commercial airline pilot. He added that he had “not heard excessive complaints about runoff.”

Board member Sam McIntyre said the more effective way to cut waste is to teach farmers about efficient irrigation methods and to provide loans to allow farmers to switch from wasteful furrow irrigation to more water-thrifty drip systems.

“There is a lot of water being wasted in this county from furrow irrigation, but it’s going to cost a fortune to correct,” said McIntyre, a grower and vice president of a farm management company. He estimated the cost at $1,400 per acre.

Agriculture now uses about two-thirds of the total water consumed in the county each year. About 86% of that is pumped from the ground.

The ground-water management agency regulates pumping from the Fox Canyon Aquifer system beneath the Oxnard Plain and the Santa Rosa and Los Posas valleys.

The ordinance would also have affected non-agricultural water wasters who live in cities that supplement their imported water with Fox Canyon ground water. Those cities include Ventura, Oxnard, Moorpark, Port Hueneme and Camarillo.

The agency also seemed to withdraw support Friday for a proposal to accelerate the existing use-reduction ordinance. That ordinance, if unaltered, will require a 5% pumping reduction in 1992, increasing by 5% every five years until 2010.

The board Friday considered beginning cutbacks in July, with the second 5% beginning in January, 1992.

But growers and the city of Ventura, which pumps about two-thirds of the city’s water supply from the Fox Canyon Aquifer, objected.

Shelley Jones, director of public works for the city of Ventura, said the city has planned for 5% cutbacks in January, 1992, but it would create a hardship to step up the schedule.

“There are 90,000 people in the city of Ventura who expect water to come from their taps when they turn them on,” Jones said.