District Looks to Stockton for Water : Drought: United seeks a lease on the rights to 20,000 acre-feet a year from the San Joaquin Delta. The deal could be finalized this summer.

In a drought-inspired deal to bring more water to Ventura County, a local water district is negotiating to lease rights to water from a parched Northern California city.

The deal, being arranged between the United Water Conservation District and the city of Stockton 400 miles to the north, would allow United to lease for up to 30 years the rights to 20,000 acre-feet of water a year.

Technically, United would lease rights to the treated sewage water that Stockton residents flush or wash down drains. But because of an obscure section of the California Water Code amended to benefit Stockton in 1961, United would not actually receive the effluent that the city discharges into the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.

Instead, United would take fresh water from the delta, the same pool from which water is drawn to supply much of Southern California through the state’s aqueduct. The water would help relieve short-term problems brought on by the fifth year of statewide drought, but it would also help address a long-term problem, said Frederick J. Gientke, United’s general manager.

“We’re really excited about this,” Gientke said. “We think this will go a long way toward reversing the overpumping of ground water.” Both parties hope to finalize the deal this summer.

Water pumped from United supplies part or all of the water needs for about 300,000 people in Ventura, Oxnard, Camarillo, Fillmore, Santa Paula and Port Hueneme.

Although the benefits are clear for United, the deal seems illogical for Stockton, where residents are enduring 35% water cutbacks, Stockton officials acknowledged.

But the city of 200,000 people 50 miles south of Sacramento has no pumps or pipelines in place to recycle its waste water or draw fresh water from the delta. And officials figure that even temporary facilities would cost $8 million.

“Releasing our rights to this water seems so incongruous in an extreme water shortage,” said Stockton Mayor Joan Darrah. “But it’s not cost-effective for us to use because we can’t treat it. In the meantime, water goes down the delta, and we could be making $350,000 a year.”

The deal must still win a permit from the State Water Resources Control Board, which undoubtedly will question whether the deal will hasten the intrusion of seawater into the environmentally sensitive delta, said Walter Petit, the board’s chief water rights official.

“Everybody is attempting to exercise their own rights and look out for their own interests,” he said.

A permit could take years under normal circumstances. But an emergency procedure could bring the state’s approval before the end of the year, Petit said.

The United-Stockton deal is one of a growing number of innovative water rights agreements that are becoming more common as the drought wears on, Petit said.

A state task force is setting up a water bank to buy water rights from farmers and water agencies that were guaranteed water when the state or federal government built dams and delivery canals in the 1960s. The task force would then sell the rights to areas whose ground water or imported supplies have dried up or have been cut back.

Water officials in Ventura County hope this year to set up a similar bank for local use. United Water Conservation and other districts in the county would take extra state water during wet years, store it in the county’s underground basins and pump it out during later, drier times.

“It’s the idea to have it for times of need,” Gientke said.

Ventura County farmers and cities do not have the kinds of guaranteed water rights that some Northern California districts have, water officials said. And it is unlikely that a local water market could develop with ground water because of a county ordinance. The ordinance, which requires 25% reduction in pumping by the year 2010, also severely restricts the sale of water rights, said William A. Waters, Ventura County counsel.

United hopes to negotiate a 30-year lease at $17.50 an acre-foot, while Stockton wants a 15-year lease at $25 to $40 per acre-foot, said Morris Allen, Stockton’s utilities director.

United would also have to pay the state about $135 an acre-foot to take delivery of the water through the State Water Project’s aqueduct. Stockton is allowed to sell the rights to the water under a California Water Code amendment, which water officials say was written to entice the city into upgrading its sewage treatment plant to maintain good water quality in the delta.

An acre-foot is 326,000 gallons, enough water to serve two families for a year.

United would receive the water through the state aqueduct, which would deliver the water to Lake Piru. United would send the water down Piru Creek and into the Santa Clara River, where it would be captured by the Freeman Diversion Dam and piped to ponds that settle into the water basins.

Gientke and state officials said they expect little opposition to the deal in Southern California.

But the reaction will be different in Northern California and in Stockton, where environmentalists and other delta water users will fight the deal, water officials said. Stockton City Councilman Mel Panizza said the danger of saltwater intrusion into the delta overrides the city’s desire for financial gain, which could range from $300,000 to $800,000 per year.

“I’m saying there is a lot of water already being sent out of the delta that nobody is replenishing,” Panizza said. “In Stockton, we had a voluntary program last year to cut 20%, and the city of Los Angeles is just now talking about 10% reductions.”

Panizza said Stockton should also preserve its water rights for the future.

“If the drought continues, even if it’s not economically a great bargain, we may have to look at using the water ourselves,” he said.