Beverly Hills Urged to Drill for Water : Drought: Public Works Commission presents plan to tap into city’s abundant underground sources. The project would protect city from Metropolitan Water District rate increases.

The drought that has crippled California this year has triggered renewed interest in a proposal for Beverly Hills to tap underground water sources that supplied the city for most of this century.

City officials were asked this week to support a plan to drill new wells to draw the abundant ground water that provided Beverly Hills with nearly half of its water until 1974. Members of the Public Works Commission told the City Council that the project could protect the city from further Metropolitan Water District rate increases and reduce reliance on water sources that have steadily depleted during the last decade.

“We are facing an acute emergency,” said Betty Harris, vice chairwoman of the commission. “We cannot afford to be at the mercy of the MWD. And right now, water is more important than money.”

Harris, who has been pushing for the city to tap the underground water source for nearly two decades, said that the wells and a treatment plant could be paid for with revenue bonds.

If the city taps the water source, she maintains, it could save millions by using its own water in the summer and fall when MWD charges peak rates. The city could then rely on outside water sources in the winter and spring, and at the same time, allow the city’s ground-water supply to replenish itself.

She suggested that the City Council consider putting the measure on the ballot this year to see if residents would support the plan.

But already the proposal seems to be gathering support.

Councilman Robert K. Tanenbaum said that the plan is critical for Beverly Hills to be self-sufficient for its water.

“We can’t afford to be in a position where the city could get (its water) shut off,” he said. “As far as I’m concerned, this is the major issue facing the city.”

Mayor Allan Alexander agreed that the city needs to consider tapping the wells and said that the commission should prepare a feasibility report, including the cost of such an endeavor.

However, the plan is sure to be a political hot potato since the city’s industrial area, bounded by Santa Monica Boulevard, Burton Way and the city’s eastern border, is one of the few places available to build a water treatment plant and the council has long struggled over what to do with the valuable property.

In addition, the city’s failure to use the well water has been a sore point for more than a decade among local conservationists. They say city officials have acted irresponsibly by ignoring the abundant source right under their feet.

The water plan was a hot issue during the state’s 1976 drought when Beverly Hills’ residents bucked a national trend by voting for a measure to raise money to upgrade the city’s wells. Nearly 70% of the city’s voters cast ballots for a $3.75-million water bond issue that would have allowed the city to continue to draw water from the underground Central and Hollywood basins. The bonds also would have provided for a new water treatment plant, a new pumping station and an upgraded reservoir and distribution system.

But shortly after the vote, engineering consultants told the city that the cost estimate for the project was too low and suggested that it might cost two or three times more than originally thought. The basin water has not been tapped since.

As a further incentive for the plan, Beverly Hills officials note that MWD would probably give them a reduced rate if they purchased less than their monthly allotment. However, the city must find out if it still owns rights to the underground water since it hasn’t tapped any of it for more than a decade.

“As far as I know, the city has retained the rights to the water, but we need to study the cost of drilling the wells and the cost of the purification plants,” said Mark Egerman, chairman of the Public Works Commission. “The council then will have to engage in a philosophical discussion weighing the merits of the plan against the cost.”

Still, advocates of the plan say that whatever the cost, the city can’t afford not to drill new wells. They contend that if the city doesn’t tap a readily available source of water, any shortages will be reflected in the continued browning of the “garden city.”

“We have been acting like somebody parched in the desert who cannot walk the extra mile to an available water source,” said Ellen Stern Harris, executive director of the Fund For the Environment. “If we don’t have sufficient water to get through the intense heat of the summer and early fall, tourism will suffer tremendously. Who wants to come to a brown Beverly Hills?”