VENTURA : Experts Warn of Water Shortages

California needs more reservoirs and better water-management practices to brace for a population increase to 50 million people within 25 years, a panel of water experts assembled Thursday in Ventura concluded.

By the year 2020, the state’s water supply could be short as much as 9 million acre-feet a year--almost 1 1/2 times the amount of water now stored at Shasta Dam, California’s largest reserve.

An acre-foot is equal to 326,000 gallons, roughly enough water to supply two families of four for one year.

“Chronic water shortages are going to be normal in California if the population predictions come true,” said Bob L. Vice, president of the California Farm Bureau Federation.

“There’s little or no new water coming into the system,” said Vice, one of the speakers at the 1995 Water Symposium, hosted by the Assn. of Water Agencies of Ventura County.

Nearly 100 farmers, elected officials and business people from across California crowded a conference room at the Doubletree Hotel on Thursday morning for the annual symposium.

Topics ranged from developing more efficient uses of the existing water supply to reviewing portions of the state and federal Endangered Species Acts that hinder agriculture.

Ventura rancher Paul Leavens criticized the county Board of Supervisors for not supporting legislation proposed in 1991 that would have provided funding for a dam in the Sespe Wilderness.

During the recent floods, as much as an acre-foot of water rushed down the Santa Clara River every two seconds, Leavens said.

A Sespe reservoir “could be the difference between water shortage and no water shortage in Ventura County,” he said. “This county needs to develop long-term plans.”