Council OKs Plan to Tap Verdugo Park Water : * Wells: Proposal to pump underground supply is a modified version of one that was opposed by community.

A once-controversial proposal to pump underground water out of Verdugo Park, dropped six years ago in the wake of community opposition, was easily approved in a modified form Tuesday by the Glendale City Council.

The new plan calls for the city to drill fewer wells to protect stately sycamore trees and ancient oaks in the park and to restore water flow in a picturesque stream that wends through an adjoining neighborhood.

Construction of the wells and a collection pipe system will be completed in a few months. A water treatment plant, however, will take about a year to build, months longer than anticipated, because of recent state regulations, the city’s water services administrator, Donald R. Froelich, said.

The council Tuesday authorized seeking bids for the project. The cost has not been estimated, although officials said the savings over buying imported water will be significant.

The city proposed more than 10 years ago to recapture a natural water supply at the park, which local engineers had first tapped almost 100 years ago.

But residents vigorously opposed that plan, charging that pumping water out of the park would endanger about 300 sycamores and oaks and dry up an artesian stream that gurgled through an exclusive neighborhood nearby.

Residents along Niodrara Drive from Wabasso Way to the park for decades had enjoyed the cool, clear water that flowed through their yards. They built elaborate landscaping along the course, with duck and fish ponds, waterfalls and bridges.

But the stream dried up in 1986, leaving behind a curious stream bed of blue-painted concrete and barren river rocks overgrown with ivy.

Residents blamed the disappearance of the water supply on the city’s increased pumping of water wells about a mile north of the stream, which they said reduced the ground water and cut off the artesian flow.

City officials blamed the drought and the installation of sewers in La Crescenta and La Canada Flintridge, replacing septic systems that had returned water into the ground. They said a diminished water supply still runs one to two feet underground before it seeps into the Verdugo basin.

For years, the question of what to do with the natural supply of underground water in the park stood at an impasse. The question was resurrected this year as the drought plaguing Southern California dragged into its fifth year, with a sixth year threatening more water shortages and higher costs for imported water.

The new plan calls for the city to drill only two water wells, rather than the seven or eight originally planned. The new wells will be able to pump the same amount of water as the earlier proposal, but will be dug near Babe Herman Field, on the east side of Canada Boulevard and away from the sycamore groves in the park.

The key to winning support for the proposal was an added plan to pump a portion of the water back into the Niodrara Drive stream. With that proposal, residents unanimously withdrew their opposition. Michael Movius, a spokesman for residents along the stream bed, thanked the council and city officials for their insight.

Richard Montgomery, who has nurtured 24 sycamores on his Colina Drive estate for 41 years, cautioned the city to carefully monitor trees not only in the park, but also in the neighborhood. City officials said they will.

The city currently pumps about 2,000 acre-feet of water from wells north of the park, Froelich said. Additional wells in the park will allow the city to capture another 1,800 acre-feet of water--enough to supply 3,600 households or a total of 9,000 residents, he said.

The city can pump and treat local water for about $100 an acre-foot, far cheaper than the $230-per-acre-foot cost of buying imported water from the Metropolitan Water District, Froelich said.

Historically, rainwater that falls in the San Gabriel foothills in north Glendale flows into the underground basin through the Verdugo Narrows in two main channels: the West Side Stream, which surfaced along Niodrara Drive, and the East Side Stream, now the Arroyo Verdugo flood control channel.

The water runs both on the surface and underground, depending on the amount of rainfall. In the early years, water from the streams collected at Verdugo Park, which was then a swamp, where it seeped into the ground.

Local engineers tapped into the natural water supply for an irrigation system in Glendale as long ago as 1894, according to historical reports. The city was deeded the water supply in 1919 by F. P. Newport.

An underground dam and shallow pickup system were built in the Verdugo Basin and used to supply a regular water source to the city from 1922 until 1979, when the state health department ordered the city to stop using the shallow supply because of the potential for contamination from the surface.

That water--about 1,000 acre-feet a year worth more than $200,000--has been going to waste during years of high ground-water levels, dumped into the Arroyo Verdugo flood control channel. There is no wasted runoff in the basin now, because of the low water level resulting from the drought, Froelich said.

When completed, the new pickup system and treatment facility will meet about 5% of the water demand in the city, reducing the amount of imported water needed, Froelich said.