Water Agency Backs Off Stringent Rules

Camrosa Water District officials backed away Thursday from implementing the most stringent water conservation program in the county, giving 26,000 people in eastern Camarillo and the Santa Rosa Valley a reprieve.

The district had planned to implement next week Phase III of its conservation ordinance. That phase would have banned lawn watering and water waste, fined residents $750 for a fourth waste violation and rationed use to 221 gallons per day for most households, or 70% of what the same household used during 1989-90.

But a meeting Wednesday night that drew more than 300 area residents and farmers to the Adolfo Camarillo High School cafeteria persuaded Camrosa board members to reconsider their options to force water users to cut back.

“We shouldn’t be dictating how people use their water,” board President Jack C. Rogers said Thursday. “If the individual wants to use the water to take five 20-minute showers every day or use it to water his lawn, that should be up to him. It should not be a governmental agency dictating how to use water.”

Similar statements at the meeting drew cheers from the audience. Residents were also concerned about the formula to set allocations.

Cathy Saine, a Camarillo real estate agent, said that basing allocations on last year’s use only rewards those who were slow to conserve.

“My daughter and her three children started conserving last year,” she said. “It’s not fair to ask them to cut back 30% from that now.”

Board members took no action Wednesday night, but the board’s executive committee met privately Thursday to reconsider the ordinance passed in May.

The committee, whose decision is expected to be ratified when the full board meets Tuesday, decided that the board should not implement Phase III as now written, said Camrosa General Manager Gina Manchester.

The board instead will meet with representatives from neighborhoods and homeowners associations to learn their opinions and adopt a revised ordinance March 26.

More stringent conservation measures are needed to meet new cutbacks by the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which supplies 90% of Camrosa’s water. The MWD announced Monday that it would cut supplies by 50% overall, with 30% reductions to urban customers and 90% cuts to agricultural customers.

Camrosa serves about 220 agricultural customers who will lose most of their water, Manchester said. But the district plans to build a $2-million well and pipeline in the next four months to deliver 2,000 acre-feet of non-drinkable water each year to growers to supplement their imported supplies.

Manchester said the district will probably drop the formula that allocates water to households based on previous usage in favor of a straight limit per household. She said, however, that the district is considering different limits depending on the size of the meter. The average home has a 3/4-inch meter.

The residents whose homes have 3/4-inch meters would be limited to about 300 gallons per day. But homeowners who have 1-inch meters, including many of the large houses on expansive lots in the Santa Rosa Valley, would have an allocation of 300 to 400 gallons per day.

“It may sound unfair to the resident with the 3/4-inch meter,” Manchester said. “But the one with the 1-inch meter paid more for the meter, more for the house and landscaping, and maybe the county requires him to maintain a hillside because of fire protection.”