Time Extended for Comment on Project

Concerned that all Port Hueneme area residents were not fully informed about a massive water project, officials agreed Monday to extend the public comment period on an environmental document for the project.

The environmental impact report concluded the $15-million water project--which involves building a new, high-tech water treatment plant in Oxnard--would have no significant impacts on the environment.

Water project proponents say it will bring top-quality drinking water to about 56,000 residents in Port Hueneme, the Channel Islands Beach Community Services District and the Navy bases in Point Mugu and Port Hueneme. Port Hueneme Water Agency officials say the project is needed to improve brackish water and to prepare for future ground water pumping restrictions by importing outside water.

The agency informed residents the environmental document had been drafted by publishing a notice in a local newspaper and sending a mailing to residents and property owners living in buildings adjacent to the water facility site on Perkins Road. But the agency did not notify all Port Hueneme residents nor did it send mailings on the document to environmental organizations.

“I wish we could have made a little more effort on [the noticing],” said agency member Jonathan Sharkey, a Port Hueneme city councilman.

The agency voted to keep the public comment period open one more week until April 15.

Al Sanders, conservation chairman of the local chapter of the Sierra Club, said the extension will give him more time to study whether the project will affect the sensitive wetlands at Ormond Beach.

The project calls for discharging brine water near areas where several protected species live.

“The impacts of this release were not adequately addressed,” Sanders told the agency members.

But John Gray, a consultant who helped prepare the document, said the project would not affect the environment because the brine water is no saltier than what is found in the lagoon areas.

“We determined that the concentrations are in the range of what occurs naturally,” Gray said.