NEWPORT BEACH : City Approves Plan to Use Ground Water

The City Council gave approval Monday night to a $15-million project that would change the chief source of the city’s drinking water supply beginning in 1995.

The proposal, dubbed the Groundwater Development Project, calls for building four wells, a 3-million gallon reservoir, a pumping station and a series of pipelines that would annually draw some six billion gallons from the county’s ground-water basin.

The ground-water project, to be completed by 1995, comes at a time when the price of imported water is increasing and its reliability as a source is decreasing. City officials have been mulling over such a plan for almost four decades but became increasingly serious about it during the 1980s when the state began suffering from a drought, officials said.

The city now buys water from the Metropolitan Water District, paying $5.5 million annually for water imported by aqueducts connected to the Colorado River. Drawing from the ground-water basin, which is administered by the Orange County Water District, the city will save an estimated $2 million a year.

“In terms of water supply for Newport Beach, it is a very big deal,” said Jeff Staneart, city utilities director. “It should be able to provide 70% of city’s need . . . and protect us from loss of water supply during a regional emergency like an earthquake.”

Monday night, the council unanimously approved the final environmental impact report on the Groundwater Development Project when it adopted the consent calendar, a list of routine matters generally voted on as a bloc.

The pump station and reservoir will be built at the Utilities Yard situated in the 900 block of West 16th Street.

In 1956 Newport Beach lost its local well water supply to saltwater intrusion from the ocean. Instead of paying the hefty price to desalinate, it turned to imported water. Staneart said that since then, the city has been searching for an alternative source.

After the project goes into operation in 1995, 70% of the city’s annual demand--about six billion gallons--will be drawn locally.

“The economics have shifted more in favor of doing the project. It took a great deal of time to study alternatives that were in fact financially and physically doable,” Staneart said.

The water from the ground-water basin will be of higher quality than the imported supply, according to a summary report of the project that was distributed to the council.

The Orange County Water District supports the plan. This agency administers ground-water supplies to 18 cities and local water districts that tap into the basin, situated in the northern portion of the county.

“We regard the basin as one large reservoir for everyone to draw from,” said William Mills, general manager of the Orange County Water District.

Newport Beach officials received a letter Monday morning from officials in Fountain Valley concerned that consumption by Newport Beach would lower the basin levels.

Mills and officials in Newport Beach said that the city’s consumption will increase the draw from the basin by 5%, a figure he said will not interfere with the needs of other cities.