Water Power : Supervisor John K. Flynn and his counterpart in Contra Costa County have been mending the state’s north-south rift.

Ventura County Supervisor John K. Flynn was in a good mood last week. It was the right time for me to ask him to name names so I could do a hard-hitting column on Ventura County water. The day before, he had been presented an award by the Environmental Water Leadership Council in acknowledgment of his “vision and leadership regarding state water issues.” I approached him during the proceedings of that conference, impaneled at the Biltmore in Los Angeles.

“Who do we call when our water tastes bad?” I asked. “And who do we thank when it’s as good as bottled water?”

He saw I had my pen and pad at the ready and smiled. “Call the phone number on your water bill to complain,” he said. After a pause, he added, “In answer to your second question, John Flynn.”

It’s arguable that Flynn is the “poster boy” for the progressive forces of California water policy. He shared the spotlight with a Contra Costa County supervisor, Sunne Wright McPeak, at last week’s water conference. Together, they have been mending the state’s north-south rift over water policy.

Together, they have “erased the battle lines between north and south California by bringing together water agencies to focus on supply issues,” according to Joan Anderson, executive director of Southern California Water Committees Inc. and one of the event’s organizers.

Flynn and McPeak are proposing the construction of a mid-state version of something we already have in our county--the Freeman Diversion Dam. This is a special structure, recently completed on the Santa Clara River. When we get a lot of rain, like in March, it catches the water bonanza instead of just letting it rush out to sea.

Another such structure would be part of an aquatic Rube Goldberg scheme that the two supervisors call “water banking,” with the aptly named Los Banos Grandes reservoir as its main feature.

Smoothing the ups and downs of the state water supply goes a long way toward improving the way Ventura County water tastes.

In most of the county--except for Simi Valley and Thousand Oaks--it often tastes pretty bad. It has minerals in it. Icky but not toxic. The simple reason is that it’s locally pumped or collected from local rivers and streams. And the drought had us, quite literally, scraping the bottom of the barrel.

In the East County, things are not so bad because they import most of their water from the giant Metropolitan Water District, which serves 8 million people in Southern California and provides two-thirds of the water consumed in Ventura County.

For a short time during the worst of the drought, special pipes were laid in mid-county, which extended the penetration of this imported MWD water to the Ventura city area. So taste improved there. But that episode of robbing Peter to pay Paul was temporary. It involved sending our water to Santa Barbara and taking in water from L. A. to make up the difference.

Like the Jack Nicholson character in “Chinatown,” I started digging into the county records to find out how all this “plumbing” worked. Boy, is it complicated. And as colorful as a map of the Old World.

I found out why two local houses across the street from one another can be getting water from vastly different sources.

It seems that we have 179 different water purveyors in the county. Most mix and match their supply from local wells, neighboring towns, the Colorado River or the Oxnard Plain. Many represent groups of less than 200 customers. Their names and descriptions--filling a 375-page book--tell a story of proud independence.

These are the names of some of the local water districts: Beef Barn, Compton Hunting & Fishing Club, Evergreen Trailer Park, Fortress Mutual Water Co., General Foods Corp., Goodenough Mutual Water Co., Thomas Aquinas College, Tres Condades Girl Scout Council, Sheriff’s Honor Farm, United Water Conservation District and Warring Water Service.

What is the future of this watery version of the U.S.S.R.? I mean, can things be worked out so folks in the east of Ventura city or out in Ojai can have water as good tasting as Thousand Oaks?

“It’s a matter of cost,” Flynn said. “Customers of United Water District--a major supplier in the county--pay $175 an acre-foot, which can supply a household for a year.” He then compared that cost to what folks are paying for designer bubbly water in the store. “That comes out to about $27 million an acre-foot, buying it by the gallon as folks do.”

Flynn’s droll theory is that somewhere in between these two figures, Venturans will find a happy medium. Avalon’s desalination plant on Catalina Island produces water at $1,000 an acre-foot. They also bottle and sell it on the mainland--8 ounces for a dollar! Flynn is optimistic that we will be able to beat those prices.

Part of the solution is the trend Flynn sees statewide--regions cooperating to smooth out jarring supply inequities.

“In the next 10 years, many of the county’s smaller districts will ask to combine or get into the bigger public districts,” he said. “In 20 years, it’ll be (down to) the big three.” That, combined with new facilities and strong state standards, will evolve into a “sort of USDA Choice stamp like on meat” for Ventura County water suppliers that maintain standards.

If all this comes true, tap water in the future will taste as good as bottled. Of course, we will be paying for it. We only hope that John Flynn can keep it decidedly below $27 million an acre-foot.

* FYI

Questions about water quality: First call the phone number on your water bill. If that doesn’t get you what you want, you need to know that the California state official to whom your water company is answerable on health matters is John Curphey at the Department of Health Services (963-8616). But if yours is a teeny company with less than 200 hookups, it is answerable to Ventura County. Call the Water Hot Line, 652-4567.