Farmers Sue Over Thousand Oaks Plan to Stop Free Water

A group of Santa Rosa Valley farmers is taking the city of Thousand Oaks to court over a plan to stop providing free water to their ranches.

Five large ranches, including Camlam Farms, Fitzgerald Ranch and B-H Farms, filed suit in Ventura County Superior Court on Monday challenging Thousand Oaks’ rights to treated water that it dumps into Conejo Creek.

In the suit, the farmers challenged an environmental study that the City Council approved last month on a proposal to sell treated water to the Pleasant Valley Water District in Camarillo.

Pleasant Valley plans to sell the water to farmers on the Oxnard Plain, where lack of rainfall and excessive ground-water pumping have contributed to the pollution of underground aquifers with seawater.

An environmental study said the proposal would pose no permanent harm to either the environment or agriculture.

But farmers who filed the suit say the proposal would harm the environment if their ranches are driven out of business. They say that analysis was omitted in the environmental study.

“The greenbelt doesn’t mean a lot if we can’t grow crops,” farmer John Lamb said.

If the city’s plan to sell 10,000 acre-feet of water each year to Pleasant Valley goes into effect, little would be left in the creek for farmers, Lamb said.

Members of the Lamb family might have the most to lose.

The Lambs, owners of 950 acres of agricultural land adjoining the creek, have taken water out of the creek to cultivate a variety of crops, including avocados and lemons, since the 1970s without paying Thousand Oaks.

City officials say they have tried to negotiate with the Lamb family to resolve the dispute.

“They ignore the fact that their current diversions are unlawful,” said Stuart Somach, a Sacramento attorney representing Thousand Oaks in its water-rights application before the state. “One of the potential responses is to take action to prevent the unlawful diversions of water.”

Somach said the Lambs and other farmers could purchase water from the Camrosa Water District, the agency that serves the eastern half of Camarillo. That agency, however, has so far failed to reach a settlement with Thousand Oaks on a proposal to purchase 1,300 acre-feet of creek water each year.

An acre-foot is 326,000 gallons of water, enough to supply two families for a year.

Somach said the lawsuit would have little effect on the city’s water-rights application now pending before the state Water Resources Control Board. He expects the lawsuit to be settled before June, when the city hopes to take its case to the state agency for resolution.

Kathy Mrowka, an associate engineer for the state water rights division, said eight other applicants, including the Lambs, are vying for rights to the creek water. A hearing has not yet been scheduled, she said.