Casitas Water District Defers Strict Rationing Plan Under Pressure

Under pressure from Ojai Valley farmers and the city of Ventura, a western county water district balked Tuesday at implementing the most stringent rationing plan ever proposed for the area.

The Casitas Municipal Water District, which provides all or part of the water used by 55,000 people in the Ojai Valley and Ventura, shelved a staff proposal to adopt a plan requiring long-term cuts of 20% in water use or payment of stiff penalties.

The plan will come back to Casitas board members May 15, after more public comment and staff revisions to allow for more exemptions, the board decided.

If it is adopted as expected, the rationing plan would be phased in over three years and remain in effect until Casitas finds an additional water source. Casitas is studying whether to help build a pipeline to import state water from Castaic Lake.

In conjunction with a recently approved moratorium on new hookups, the plan is designed to ensure that water is not drained from Lake Casitas more quickly than it can be replenished with normal rainfall. That balance of supply and demand is known as “safe yield.”

“The system isn’t as Draconian as some people have suggested,” said board Director Bill Hicks, defending the proposed plan.

“It’s designed to get us back under safe yield,” Director James Coultas added.

But Shelley Jones, public works director of the city of Ventura, complained that allocations and penalties in the plan were unfair to Ventura, which buys Casitas water to serve one-third of its residents. Jones said Ventura has already substantially reduced its demand from Casitas through a city rationing plan that limits most households to 294 gallons a day.

Casitas officials, however, said they doubted that Ventura would have to reduce further to meet the 20% conservation goal.

Ojai Valley grower Ken Shelton urged the board not to move to a rationing system but to continue with the present voluntary conservation program.

“Mandatory measures are like herpes,” he said. “You never get rid of them.”

Under the plan, the district would ask consumers to cut use by 20% from 1989 levels beginning in July, but no rate changes will take effect until January, 1992.

Because much of the Ojai Valley is made up of residences with large lots, a 20% cut would limit the average home to about 423 gallons a day, officials said. If no cutbacks are made, the average residence would pay about an additional $5 a month in penalties the first year.

Beginning in January, 1993, residents who exceed allocations by 10% for two months would pay double their normal bill for the rest of the year. Beginning in January, 1994, households that exceed their allocations by 10% for three months or more would pay five times the normal cost of water for the rest of the year.

Residents would be able to apply for exemptions to the rate increases and penalties if they refit their homes to conserve as much water as possible, such as with low-flow toilets and shower heads.

According to the plan, farmers will be limited to 2.5 acre-feet of water each year per acre cultivated. That is the normal amount of water needed for the lemons and avocados grown in the Ojai Valley when farmers are watering efficiently, district officials said. An acre-foot is enough water to cover an acre of land one foot deep or serve two families for one year.

Rex Laird, executive director of the Ventura County Farm Bureau, said he doubted that the limit would impose a hardship on Ojai Valley farmers.

“For most tree crops, that’s not an unreasonable amount of water,” Laird said.

However, growers in the upper Ojai Valley, where temperatures are hotter and the humidity is lower, said they need more water for their crops and asked the board to re-evaluate the amount.

The five-year drought has both decreased mountain runoff that replenishes Lake Casitas and forced farmers and residents to use more water on crops and yards. Those factors require the Casitas Municipal Water District to consider a rationing plan now, said Richard Hajas, assistant general manager.

But even if rain levels had remained constant, increasing population and greater demand from farmers in the area that Casitas serves would have forced the district into an allocation system in the next few years, Hajas said.

Times staff writer Joanna M. Miller contributed to this story.