Judge Calls Water Report Inadequate

A Ventura County Superior Court judge has ruled that an environmental report prepared by the city of Thousand Oaks on its plans to sell treated sewage water to the Pleasant Valley Water District is inadequate.

The ruling by Judge Frederick A. Jones is a partial victory for a group of Santa Rosa Valley farmers who filed a lawsuit in February challenging Thousand Oaks’ rights to the water it dumps into the Calleguas and Conejo creeks. The farmers use the treated water to help irrigate their crops.

The water is discharged from a municipal sewer plant and spills into the creeks that cut through the farmers’ land.

In their lawsuit, the farmers challenged a city-commissioned environmental study that found that taking 10,000 acre-feet of the treated water out of the creeks will not harm the environment. The water would be sold to the Pleasant Valley Water District, which in turn would use it to supply growers on the Oxnard Plain.

The court ruled that the environmental report did not adequately analyze the project’s effect on the 1,400 acres of agricultural land owned by, among others, Camlam Farms, Fitzgerald Farms and B-H Farms in the Santa Rosa Valley. The ruling, handed down last week, said the report did not consider alternative projects that would share the water with these farms.

“It’s not a complete victory, but we’re very pleased with the decision,” said David Lamb, the attorney representing the farmers.

Thousand Oaks officials could not be reached for comment Monday.

Lamb said he did not expect the city to file an appeal. He said he hopes that the court’s ruling will make it possible for the farmers and the city to work out a compromise that would bring an end to the three-year-old dispute. Lamb said the city still has the option of revising its environmental report to comply with the judge’s ruling.

He said the farmers have offered to pay the city for using the treated water, but that the offer has been rejected.

Meanwhile, the city has filed a complaint with the state Water Resources Control Board to stop the farmers from irrigating their crops with the free waste water, Lamb said. The state has not yet taken action against the farmers, and they continue to use the water, he said.