Ventura’s Well Plan Riles Water Suppliers : Santa Paula: The pumpers say it would violate their property rights and damage a major source. The dispute has reached Superior Court.

Santa Paula water providers accused the city of Ventura on Monday of threatening the future of their water supply by planning to build a new well in the Saticoy area that would tap into underground reservoirs that feed one of the county’s richest farm areas.

The 40 members of the Santa Paula Water Pumpers Assn. say the well would violate their 1867 property rights to the underground water supply beneath a 13,000-acre area, and could forever damage a major water source for Ventura County’s largest citrus-ranching region.

However, Ventura argues that there is no danger to the basin and that the well will use less water than the pumpers predict. City officials also say the pumpers’ property rights are far outweighed by the needs of Ventura’s 26,000 water customers, who have been living under mandatory water rationing for 18 months.

The dispute over the vast, underground water basin has reached the Ventura County Superior Court, where the pumpers sued the city in June in an attempt to have the court declare their rights to the water. The proposed well could pump 2.6 billion gallons annually from the Santa Paula ground-water basin, Santa Paula water providers say.

Negotiations to settle the suit broke off several weeks ago, and then the city filed a countersuit on Sept. 25, stating its arguments and also asking for a court resolution, said Ventura Chief Assistant City Atty. Michael R. Dougherty.

“There’s millions of acre-feet of water out there that’s not being used and the city needs it,” Dougherty said. “It’s very simple.”

An acre-foot is the amount of water that it would take to submerge one acre of land under one foot of water--325,850 gallons.

But Frank Brommenschenkel, vice president and general manager of the Santa Paula Water Works, said his company has historical rights to the basin.

He said the water company supplies water to 6,700 homes and businesses and has been in operation since 1867.

“If there’s excess water available, we’d be willing to share this,” Brommenschenkel said. “But they were making like the big bullies on this thing, which indicates to me they may not be all that confident there is surplus water, and they’re essentially trying to steal water from their neighbors.”

The Santa Paula pumpers are prepared to share--if the city of Ventura can prove that there is enough water in the Santa Paula basin, said Jack Dickenson, president of the Limoneira Co., which irrigates 2,500 acres of citrus and avocado groves with water from the basin.

“Their position is there’s nothing to worry about and there’s plenty of water and we should just go away,” Dickenson said. “I would say that’s fine, but as long as there’s an uncertainty about the condition of the basin, we need our rights declared.”

Both sides agree that the basin contains about 4.9 million acre-feet of water.

The pumpers argue that water from rainfall and snow runoff may be replenishing the basin as fast as all the wells are depleting it, but they admit that they don’t have scientific data to back their claim. Until a study can be done, the well should not be drilled, they say.

However, they fear that if water is coming out of the basin as fast as it goes in, a new well would take out even more water, eventually lowering the level in the basin, Brommenschenkel said.

“We’re contending that’s not the case, and that we can remove water from the basin without adversely impacting the basin,” said Ventura Public Works Director Shelley Jones.

In fact, Jones said, the new well may even improve the water quality by making more room for rainwater to enter the basin instead of just running off into surface drainage channels.

Jones said the new well, called Saticoy Well No. 3, would be installed 1,000 feet from an existing well called Saticoy Well No. 2.

No. 2 has the capacity to provide 3,500 acre-feet of water per year; when finished, No. 3 could provide the same amount when running at maximum speed full time, Jones said.

However, the two combined would probably pump an average of 3,300 to 3,500 acre-feet per year except during times of peak demand--far less than the 8,000 acre-feet estimated by the water pumpers, Jones said.

“Our City Council is very firm that we are not going to go out and do things that are going to have an adverse impact on people,” Jones said of the well plans. “I think that it’s all part of a process, and we’ll continue until things are resolved.”