East County Could End Water Rationing : Drought: Restrictions now require 17% conservation over 1989 use levels. A MWD decision today could eliminate the program.

Residents and farmers in eastern Ventura County could soon be using water without restrictions if the Metropolitan Water District lifts mandatory rationing today as expected.

The board will decide at a special meeting in Los Angeles whether to eliminate the yearlong water-rationing program, due to recent heavy rains and an expected increase in water from the state. The current restrictions, which require 17% conservation over 1989 use levels, are being enforced with fines imposed at three times the normal price of water.

The MWD, however, is expected to ask users to continue to conserve water voluntarily at 10% less than their water use in 1989.

That kind of conservation should pose little problem to Thousand Oaks residents who are used to 30% reductions, Mayor Robert E. Lewis said.

“We would hope they will continue to watch their water use,” he said. “People have conservation measures in effect, and I would hope they would retain the habit.”

Through municipal and private water districts, MWD supplies some or all of the water used by 450,000 residents and about 500 farmers in Simi Valley, Thousand Oaks, Moorpark, Oxnard, Camarillo and surrounding unincorporated areas.

The MWD’s meeting today comes one week after the state of California, which supplies almost half the water used by the district, announced that it would increase the amount of water it would deliver to MWD from 700,000 acre-feet a year to nearly 1 million acre-feet.

The MWD will receive an additional 1.2 million acre-feet of water from the Colorado River. An acre-foot of water is enough to serve two families for about a year.

For penalties to be lifted, the cities and water districts would have to take separate actions to eliminate allocations, but the local suppliers traditionally follow the MWD’s lead. Thousand Oaks already has voted to ease water restrictions, and may eliminate them entirely, Lewis said.

For farmers, removing restrictions and penalties would reduce dependence on scarce ground-water supplies and allow planting in fields that might otherwise lie fallow, said Craig Underwood, a Somis fruit and vegetable grower.

“With MWD relaxing restrictions, this should be a pretty good year,” said Underwood, whose family-run operation farms 700 acres in the county. “Last year, we had to let one field lie fallow all winter.”

When Underwood Ranches irrigated another field last summer that lies within the city of Camarillo, Underwood was fined $14,000 for excess water use.

“The pressure will definitely be off,” he said. Underwood said 10% conservation will not be difficult because of permanent changes in water use. Many farmers in the county have installed expensive but efficient drip irrigation systems that cut use substantially, he said.

“I think the drought has permanently changed farming,” he said.

Officials at urban water suppliers said the use of low-flow shower heads and toilets combined with people’s newly gained conservation habits will keep water conservation at 10%.

“We certainly hope that people don’t think this is the end of the need to conserve water,” said Michael Kleinbrodt, deputy director of public works for the city of Simi Valley, which receives nearly all its water from the MWD through the Calleguas Municipal Water District.

Kleinbrodt said he looks at Northern California reservoirs as a type of savings account.

“We’ve drawn it down and now it’s up again,” he said. “If people don’t watch how they use water, our savings account could become depleted again very quickly.”

For that reason, MWD officials said they will carefully monitor the level of water use throughout the service area, which spans six counties from Ventura to the Mexican border and provides more than half the water used by 15 million people.

“We will be watching very closely, and we may well have to go back to mandatory rationing again,” said Don Adams, director of resources at the MWD, who nevertheless said he expects the board to eliminate restrictions today. He said the need to save Northern California water for future dry years is the inspiration for asking users to voluntarily cut use 10%.

“But it is our opinion that the levels are up, and we want to share that with the water users,” Adams said.

Despite the expected increase in use and corresponding increase in revenue, officials said water prices are not expected to decrease. On the contrary, they will increase by about 20% July 1 and will continue to climb gradually to pay for new projects and maintenance.

The MWD plans to build a large new reservoir to capture Southern California rainfall and a new pipeline to San Diego. In addition, the district must maintain its system of pipes and treatment plants, spokesman Lee Gottlieb said.