Water Law Puts Growers on the Spot : Irrigation: Farmers scramble to comply with a new county ordinance that reduces yearly pumping on the Oxnard Plain.

Ventura County growers are scrambling to sort out tangled water rights and change irrigation systems to comply with a new county ordinance that cuts ground-water pumping on the Oxnard Plain 5% this year and 25% by 2010.

The restriction, which became effective Jan. 1, is designed to bring the severely overpumped ground-water reservoir back into balance so seawater does not continue to breach the underground fresh-water supply.

Under the ordinance, growers and mutual water companies--farmer-owned cooperatives that use common wells--must search through old records to determine their average annual water use for 1985 to 1990. Their allocations are 95% of the historical average.

The same is true for the cities of Ventura, Oxnard and Camarillo, which supplement their supplies with water pumped from the Fox Canyon Aquifer.

But the ordinance, enacted by the Fox Canyon Groundwater Management Agency, allows exemptions for growers who can prove that they are at least 80% efficient in their use of water.

Soil experts determine efficiency based on the water needs of the crop grown, the weather and the soil type.

“It’s a clerical nightmare,” said David Vanoni, a grower and member of the Del Norte Water Co. cooperative serving about 60 growers in the Las Posas Valley. “We’ve had a lot of legal meetings to find an equitable way to divvy up the shares of water.”

Vanoni’s mother, Lucy, who lives on one of the family ranches in Saticoy, said the family has already changed to an efficient drip irrigation system to reduce water consumption and is moving toward crops that require less water.

“We’re planting a little more citrus each year,” she said. “We’re getting out of vegetables.”

But Don Reeder, manager of Pro Ag, which runs farms for landowners, including absentee owners, said four of his citrus groves are being converted from furrow irrigation to mini sprinklers to comply with the ordinance.

He said he believes that the ordinance will inspire growers to police themselves and use water more efficiently.

“If we’ve got five efficient guys and one Joe Blow out there wasting water, you’re going to see individuals and water companies managing themselves,” he said. “Otherwise, the whole water district will be penalized.”

The ordinance was passed after decades of growers and cities pumping more water from the ground than rain and water districts could replenish. As a result of pumping beyond the point called the safe yield, seawater moved into the Fox Canyon Aquifer, considered the largest and most important source of fresh underground water in Ventura County.

Under the ordinance, pumpers must cut their extractions by 5% this year. They must reduce another 5% by 1995, and 5% more every five years until they reach 25% reductions by 2010. That would reduce pumping to the point of safe yield.

Pumpers who do not reduce their pumping will be fined up to $200 per acre-foot. An acre-foot is enough water to serve a family of five for one year.

Lowell Preston, coordinator of the Groundwater Management Agency and manager of the county’s Water Resources Department, said he won’t know how well the ordinance has worked until at least a year from now.

If the growers do not reduce pumping enough to stay on the ordinance’s schedule, the penalties would be increased or growers would have to manage their water so they were more than 80% efficient, he said.

“We expect people to reduce pumping not only to protect the aquifer but because it will cost them less money to grow their crops,” Preston said.

Rex Laird, executive director of the Ventura County Farm Bureau and a member of a panel that helped draft the ordinance, acknowledged that it will be difficult for farmers who share wells to equitably divide up the water.

“But we are forging ahead on uncharted waters,” he said. “Nobody likes additional restrictions. But I think there is a clear commitment out there to reach safe yield.”

Ground-Water Pumping

As of Jan. 1, 1992, growers and cities that pump from the Fox Canyon Aquifer must reduce their pumping by 5%, or pay penalties of up to $200 an acre-foot. By 2010, pumpers must cut extractions by 25%. The cuts are needed to bring pumping to safe-yield, the amount of water than can be safely extracted without pumping more out than can be replenished.

Source: Ventura County Water Resources Dept.