Ventura May End Water Rationing : Conservation: The council will decide whether to drop fines for excessive use. The penalties have brought $627,000 to city coffers.

The Ventura City Council is expected tonight to end mandatory water rationing, which began three years ago in the depths of the statewide drought.

Households and businesses that use excessive amounts of water will no longer pay stiff penalties if the council decides to drop the fines, which were imposed as part of a conservation ordinance in March, 1990.

Higher-than-normal rainfall for two straight years has replenished ground-water basins and the Ventura River, two of the city’s primary sources of water. Lake Casitas reservoir, another major water source for Ventura, is ready to spill over.

Since the penalties were imposed, residents have washed their cars less, let their lawns turn browner and taken shorter showers. About 99.4% of single-family residences used less than their water allotments from November, 1991, to November, 1992, city officials said.

Figures for businesses were not readily available, city officials said.

With more water available and residents conserving as a matter of habit, city officials say it is no longer necessary to threaten water users with fines. In March, 1992, the council relaxed the conservation ordinance by increasing the water allotments for some households and lifting the moratorium on non-residential water service connections.

Although the council is expected to abolish fines tonight, residents will still pay higher rates as consumption increases.

“Hopefully, the city will heave a sigh of relief” at the end of rationing, Mayor Gregory L. Carson said. “I think the citizens have done a good job in conserving water. We think that conservation will continue to be a careful effort on their part.”

Under the rationing ordinance, customers who exceeded their water allowances could be penalized up to 10 times the normal rate for excess use. Since the ordinance was passed, the city has received about $627,000 in penalties, said Barkley Martin, who is in charge of maintenance services for the city.

Penalties were used to fund the city’s toilet rebate program, which officials have called a success. The program, which began in October, 1991, gives water users $80 for each water-guzzling toilet that is replaced with a low-volume toilet.

More than 5,000 toilets in the city have been replaced, said Pam Cosby, the city’s utilities manager.

Cosby warned that lifting the penalties doesn’t mean that residents should go back to their former water-wasting habits.

“All of our water supplies are limited,” Cosby said. “We could have another drought. We need to look at this as some breathing time to put together our long-term water supply.”

The city is planning to build a desalination plant, which will be ready for use in 1995 or 1996, said Glenn McPherson, project manager.

Residents voted for desalination over importing state water in an advisory vote in November.

Councilman Tom Buford, who heads the Utilities Committee that recommended eliminating fines, said: “We trust people. We don’t expect anyone in town to go hog-wild even with the removal of penalties.”