Despite Heavy Rains, Ventura City Council Refuses to Ease Restrictions on Water Use

A Ventura City councilman said Monday that recent heavy rainfall has eased the drought enough to allow relaxing the city’s water restrictions--a suggestion quickly shot down by his colleagues.

At Monday night’s meeting, Councilman James Monahan proposed that daily water allotments be increased “by at least 100 gallons per home, or to some amount that will help people meet their needs at home.”

However, city officials cautioned that the storms merely brought rainfall to the normal level for this time of year, but did not erase the effects of the five-year drought. The majority of council members supported keeping the city’s strict water rationing ordinance in effect. Since it was adopted last April, the ordinance has resulted in a 24% cut in water consumption.

The council did not formally act on Monahan’s proposal, which was not on the agenda.

Mayor Richard Francis said the city’s water committee examines water use, supply and replenishment every week and will propose reversing the rationing ordinance only after it has solved the ongoing shortage.

“The water committee is meeting regularly. We have every intention of solving the problem,” Francis said. “The data is clear. The water is not there even when we get the new wells on line,” he said, referring to the Saticoy well in east Ventura and other potential ground-water sources.

Councilwoman Cathy Bean said: “It doesn’t sound to me like whatever rain we’ve gotten in the last few weeks is enough for us to say, ‘Hey, the drought is over.’

“I personally do not feel that we can add water to our customers’ use now and then decide in August that we’ve got to cut back more severely than we’re cut back now,” Bean said. “We’ve got to show good faith, and turning on the water taps and spigots is not good faith.”

Households of four or more people are allotted 294 gallons per day during winter months, while households of three or more in apartment complexes or condominiums are alloted 196 gallons per day.

Since the citywide conservation plan went into effect last April, more than 4,100 of Ventura’s 26,000 water customers have applied to the city Water Department for increases in their daily water allotments, more than 3,500 of which have been approved.

City Manager John Baker said the daily allotments will increase in the coming summer months for 12,250 residential customers as a reflection of greater need caused by drier weather. However, he said, the remaining 7,750 residential customers will not get the increase.

Shelley Jones, the city’s public works director, said water inventories have not risen substantially.

“There’s a little more than there was, but not a lot,” Jones said. “The flow in the diversions from the Ventura River are up significantly from what they were in December. But it’s a little early for us to say how dependable that supply is.”

Before the meeting, council members had called Monahan’s proposal imprudent.

Increasing water allotments “is just the wrong message to send,” and could lead to Ventura residents distrusting city officials for reversing the decision to conserve, Councilman Gary Tuttle said Monday before the meeting.

“Right from a year and a half ago, when we started this in City Council, we were accused of creating this myth of a water crisis to stop growth, and of course a year later the whole state said, ‘Hey folks, we have a water problem,’ ” Tuttle said.