OJAI VALLEY : Need for Treatment Plant Questioned

Ojai Valley residents sparred with a state health official last week over why the area needs to build a $25-million water-treatment plant to thwart giardia, which affects 25 out of every 100,000 Californians.

The debate was focused on Casitas Municipal Water District’s proposal to finance the plant with bonds that would be reimbursed by an average increase of $168 a year in property taxes for residents within the district boundaries. Casitas managers hope to place the bond measure on the November, 1992, ballot.

John Curphey, a sanitary engineer with the state Department of Health Services, told 60 residents at a Casitas board meeting last week that all surface drinking water must be filtered for tiny giardia cysts by 1993.

Curphey said that documented cases of giardiasis--an illness that causes cramps, nausea and diarrhea, often referred to as “beaver fever”--have been under-reported and underestimated.

The giardia protozoan or parasites that cause the malaise are believed to be transmitted through human and animal wastes in drinking water from mountain streams. Lake Casitas is replenished from mountain runoff. The district treats the water with chlorine, but chlorine in those concentrations do not eliminate all giardia parasites.

At the meeting, citrus grower Robert Calder Davis asked Curphey if there have been giardia outbreaks in the Ojai area. “Do we really have it, or are you just proposing a cure for which there is no disease?” Davis asked.

Curphey said he was unaware of local cases, but state and federal health officials believe that any mountain stream or reservoir can harbor giardia and must be suspect. “It’s a primary standard for water quality, such as we have for mercury, lead and arsenic,” he said. “We feel it is as serious as those kinds of things.”

District General Manager John Johnson said Casitas water customers should not question whether the plant will be built but rather how it will be financed.

Casitas director Bill Hicks said health standards should be everyone’s concern. “All we’re talking about is $14 a month to make sure our water supply is safe. To me that is a reasonable investment,” he said.