Ventura Council Majority Vows to Back Desalination

A majority of Ventura City Council members reaffirmed Wednesday that they will abide by the voters’ wishes to build a seawater desalination plant in the city.

Councilman Tom Buford, chairman of the city’s Utilities Committee who had supported a state water pipeline over desalination, said he will ask the City Council on Monday to declare its intent to move forward on desalination.

“I’m confident that we can do it,” Buford said of building a desalination plant. “And who knows? Someday I may even be enthusiastic about it.”

In a non-binding vote Tuesday, voters were asked if they preferred construction of a desalination plant or construction of a pipeline to bring in water from the State Water Project. Desalination won with a comfortable 55% to 45% margin.

On Wednesday night, Buford and the other Utilities Committee members--Councilwoman Cathy Bean, who favored desalination, and Councilman Jack Tingstrom, a vocal state water proponent--voted to recommend that the full council go forward with plans for a desalination plant.

In separate interviews, Mayor Gregory L. Carson and Councilmen Todd Collart and Gary Tuttle pledged that they too would support voters’ wishes on desalination.

Councilman James Monahan, a strong supporter of building a state water pipeline, said the non-binding vote did not represent what the people of the city want.

“I think (the vote was) so close, there’s no mandate,” Monahan said. Instead, he said the city should offer voters a second ballot initiative that would be binding on the City Council. The next scheduled city election is in November, 1993.

But former Councilman John McWherter, a spokesman for Venturans For State Water, a group that opposed desalination, issued a statement Wednesday urging no more delays.

“Enough time has been spent on studying, discussing and arguing,” McWherter said. “The City Council must now move forward and bring in the additional water without further delay.”

Timothy Downey, a city planning commissioner who led the charge for a desalination plant, said he is confident that city leaders will work toward building a desalination plant.

However, he said, “the community would not stand for it” if some council members tried to obstruct or stall plans.

“I have every confidence that the majority of the council will be true to their word,” he said. “But it would not surprise me if a call for recall were to come out of the community for those obstructionists on the council.”

With all precincts tallied, but with about 1,800 absentee ballots remaining uncounted, 22,250 Ventura voters cast ballots for desalination and 18,182 voted for state water.

The city, if it follows the recommendation of the Utilities Committee, will now direct its staff to outline the steps necessary to begin work toward building a desalination plant in Ventura. A city-ordered engineering study estimated earlier this year that it would cost $30.4 million a year to build and maintain a desalination plant to produce 7,000 acre-feet of water annually. An acre-foot is enough water to serve two families of four for a year.

In addition to choosing a location for the plant, the city must also eventually decide whether the city would build and operate the plant itself, or buy water from a private company that would build and operate the plant.