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Water Districts May Lease Allocations

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Western Ventura County’s three largest water distributors may be able to collectively save more than $1 million per year by leasing their state water allocations for short terms while retaining their long-term rights.

Officials of the city of Ventura, Casitas Municipal Water District and United Water Conservation District met informally in Ventura on Tuesday to discuss temporarily leasing some of their entitlements of 15,000 acre-feet per year to other California water districts.

Casitas and United each pay about $400,000 per year to reserve their annual rights to 5,000 acre-feet of state water apiece. Ventura, which holds entitlements to 10,000 acre-feet of water per year, pays more than $800,000 annually.

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There are 326,000 gallons in one acre-foot, enough to supply two average-size families for one year.

In order to have the water available to sell, the agencies would have to notify the state Department of Water Resources by Oct. 1 that they want their entitlements next year.

“There are folks out there who are looking to buy water,” said John Johnson, general manager of Casitas. Selling Casitas’ allotted water for the year could offset annual fees from the state Department of Water Resources, Johnson said. He believes those fees will soon increase.

Johnson said he will ask his board of directors for approval to order its allocation at the next board meeting Sept. 28.

Of the three agencies, only United has been able to take delivery of its state water. United draws the water from a state reservoir at Lake Pyramid and into Lake Piru, which is operated by the district.

United may participate in the leasing program, but only on a year-to-year basis after tests to determine the condition of the ground-water basins, said United General Manger Frederick J. Gientke.

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As a conservation district, United is in charge of replenishing underground water basins and aquifers on the Oxnard Plain, from which water has been overdrawn for decades.

The city of Ventura will wait until next year to decide whether to participate in the leasing plan after the city has had time to decide on long-term policy decisions included in an upcoming water management plan, said Ronald Calkins, the city’s public works director.

“The council has thought long and hard about water policy,” he said, referring to recent debates on whether to build a pipeline to receive state water or build a plant to desalinate seawater.

Mayor Tom Buford said he did not want to take the matter to the council when there would only be a few weeks to decide whether to order the water.

“We don’t want to get into another debate in town about state water versus desal,” he said.

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