VENTURA : Panel Members Urge Water Initiatives

In a move to force an election over Ventura’s future water supply, two members of the City Council-appointed water committee are gearing up for a petition drive to place a pair of initiatives on the ballot.

Tim Downey and Steve Bennett, both members of the Citizens’ Water Advisory Committee, formed a new committee called DESAL and drafted two initiatives to bring to voters in a special election in early 1993.

But if the City Council decides to put options before voters on a November ballot as DESAL members prefer, they would drop their petition drive, Downey said.

“But in case they don’t, we’re prepared to go forward and do it ourselves,” Downey said.

Councilman Gary Tuttle applauded their efforts. “I think it’s a good idea. It makes my role on the City Council a little easier,” said Tuttle, who supports putting the initiatives on the November ballot.

At issue is whether to let voters decide how and whether to augment the city’s water supply.

If the city were to join other water agencies and cities in the county in a project to build a pipeline to the state’s water supply, the city’s share to produce about 10,000 acre-feet per year would be about $37 million, said Shelley Jones, the city’s director of public works. The cost of water in the year 2000 would be about $915 per acre-foot.

A desalination plant, the other option being considered, would cost about $55 million to build and produce up to about 7,000 acre-feet per year. Desalinated water would cost about $1,086 per acre-foot in the year 2000.

The city advisory committee, which studied the issue for 10 months, announced last month that it favored desalination 12 to 2. Desalination gives complete control to the city and cannot be cut off or reduced by a state agency during a drought, as imported water was last year.

City Council members, three of whom campaigned for office as advocates of a state water pipeline, have so far balked at putting an initiative on the ballot.

Rex Laird, executive director of the Ventura County Farm Bureau and an advisory committee member, said he feared that citizens would vote to turn down both options.

“Our concern is that we’ll wind up without any new water, and that’s a threat to agriculture because of all the competition for ground water,” he said.