Simi Threatens Suit Over Water Rate Increase : Calleguas: Officials call a 28% hike by the primary supplier unjustified. The district says it would fund improvement projects.

Simi Valley officials threatened Friday to take the city’s primary water supplier to court over what they said is an unjustified 28% water rate increase.

“If we can challenge it, we will challenge it,” Mayor Greg Stratton said of the rate increase recently approved by the Calleguas Municipal Water District.

The district provides water to about 500,000 people in Simi Valley, Thousand Oaks, Moorpark, Camarillo and Oxnard. Officials in the four other cities said they have no plans to challenge Calleguas’ rate increase, which they, along with Simi Valley, will have to pass on to customers.

The water district’s five-member board of directors in April unanimously agreed to raise its rate from $271 to $347 per acre-foot for treated water, beginning July 1. An acre-foot of water is equal to 326,000 gallons, enough to supply two average-size families for a year, district water officials said.

Calleguas officials said a large part of the rate increase is to help pay for a 10-year, $185-million capital improvement program. They said the money will be used to construct new pipelines and other facilities needed to ensure a steady supply of imported and reclaimed water to the region.

But Stratton and other City Council members said the district has not provided them with enough information to support the need for the massive projects it is proposing.

“They haven’t justified their plans or what they need all that money for,” Stratton said. “All I’ve seen is a list of water projects with an amount listed next to them. That’s not adequate justification. And the public should not accept that.”

Nonetheless, the City Council at its meeting Monday will have no choice but to raise its own water rates to cover Calleguas’ increase, Stratton said. The new rates will mean that the city’s 18,000 customers will pay an average of $8 more on their bimonthly water bills, beginning July 1.

“We don’t have any choice but to pass it on,” Stratton said of the rate increase. “All we can do is come back with a legal challenge . . . to get them to roll back their rates.”

Councilman Bill Davis agreed. “I don’t see any justification for the rate increase,” he said. “To me, it just doesn’t make any sense.”

Patrick Miller, chairman of the board for Calleguas, said the city has no grounds for a lawsuit. He said the district hired a financial consultant to evaluate the rate increase before it was adopted to ensure that it was fair.

“We feel we’ve been responsible,” he said. “Everything we do is for the betterment of the district.”

Calleguas officials said $31 of the $76 increase per acre-foot of water is because of an adjustment in prices from its own water supplier, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. They said Calleguas added the remaining $45 so that it can raise the $185 million for its various improvement projects.

The largest project is a $51-million filtration plant at Bard Reservoir, between Simi Valley and Thousand Oaks. Calleguas also plans to construct an eight-foot pipeline that would provide a new channel to bring imported water to Ventura County through Newhall.

Other money would be used to develop new water sources and to build a water treatment plant that would allow the use of some brackish water now found beneath Simi Valley.

Meanwhile, officials in the other four county cities served by Calleguas said they will eventually have to pass on the district’s rate increase to their customers.

Camarillo officials said they will probably consider a change in their water rate schedule next week, while Thousand Oaks officials said they may wait until the fall to do so.

Under the new water rate structure expected to be adopted by the Simi Valley City Council on Monday, residential customers would pay 84 cents per 100 cubic feet of water that they use up to 4,400 cubic feet. The current rate is 64 cents.

The city’s water-conservation ordinance allots 4,400 cubic feet of water, or 32,892 gallons per household, during each two-month billing cycle. This translates to about 550 gallons a day.

Customers exceeding the allotted amount under the new rate schedule would pay $1.47 for each 100 cubic feet of water above the threshold. They now pay $1.28.

All other customers, including commercial and agricultural users, would face similar rate increases.