FILLMORE : Residents Discuss Pipeline at Forum

About 40 north Ventura County residents attended a public meeting in Fillmore to hear about the environmental impact of a proposed alternative water pipeline that would slice through the Santa Clara Valley.

Sponsored by Calleguas Municipal Water District, the forum Monday provided an opportunity for the public to comment on the West Valley Project, proposed by Calleguas and the Metropolitan Water District. Calleguas officials said the pipeline is a much-needed alternative to the single pipeline that currently supplies the district with all of its water.

Forty-one residents attended the meeting at the Fillmore Senior Center. About 11 residents spoke, asking the district to take great care in evaluating all possible harm to the valley’s aesthetics and agriculture.

“This is an environmentally sensitive area,” said Fillmore City Councilman Roger Campbell. “Many of our citrus growers use beneficial insects to protect their crops instead of pesticides. Dust created from the construction of this pipeline could kill off some these beneficial insects.”

Other speakers addressed concerns such as traffic impacts, construction-related noise and altering of native habitat.

The 6- to 8-foot-wide proposed pipeline would run near Castaic Lake into Ventura County along one of two routes. Monday’s meeting, the third of three such public forums, focused on projected environmental impacts in the Santa Clara Valley. The pipeline would run underground from Santa Clarita along the Santa Clara River, eventually ending near a giant underground storage reservoir near Moorpark.

The other alternative route would run through the San Fernando Valley, along the Simi Valley Freeway, then north to the Las Posas Basin.

Calleguas serves nearly half a million Ventura County residents in Oxnard, Simi Valley, Thousand Oaks, Camarillo and Moorpark.