The Ojai Post

To address this issue Ojai must answer two questions;
o Is the City’s water supply limited, and if so, to what extent?
o What constitutes a “resource constraint” in terms of water availability?

Answering these questions with sufficient detail and rigor is essential if Ojai is to make an informed planning decision. While no one disagrees that the water supply on which Ojai must depend is limited, and most knowledgeable parties believe we are close to that limit, a more definitive answer is not in hand today.

A limited water supply?

Here is what we know:

• The City of Ojai, like all the other water users in the greater Ojai Valley, homes businesses, farmers, ranchers, fish, wildlife, and the natural environment, depends on the precipitation that falls in the Ventura River watershed. No one, and no water agency, has proposed or considers possible any financially and physically reasonable way to import water into the Ojai Valley. This places Ojai in the unique category of communities where importation is not an available measure to mitigate water resource constraints.

• The rainfall that occurs only in the winter months in the semi-arid Ojai Valley is stored in two surface reservoirs, Matilija and Casitas, and one groundwater basin, the Ojai Basin. Some supply is available from small surface water springs and creeks during part of the year and from wells that tap shallow percolating groundwater generally along watercourses, and particularly along the main stem of the Ventura River. The majority of the available water in the watershed is used in the Valley outside the City of Ojai in unincorporated Ventura County, much of it for agriculture, primarily citrus and other orchards, and most of the rest for domestic use in the rural areas and in the small unincorporated communities in the greater Ojai Valley.

• The principal water purveyor in the watershed is the Casitas Municipal Water District. Most of the water users in the City of Ojai are supplied by the Golden State Water Company (GSW). Most of GSW’s water supplies come from wells in the Ojai groundwater basin with some water being purchased under an allocation from Casitas.

• In the resource constraints section of the Housing Element of the Ventura County General plan relating to the Ventura River watershed, the limited ability of Casitas to allocate water is described. That section concludes, “There are 13 water purveyors (including Casitas MWD) serving Urban, Existing Community, or Rural areas within the unincorporated Ojai Valley that are able to provide either a limited number of allocations or are severely restricted in their ability to supply water.”

• The majority of GSW’s water supply is pumped from wells in the Ojai Groundwater Basin, which is also the source for at least half of the agricultural and domestic water in the east end of the Ojai Valley. The Ojai Basin Groundwater Management Agency (OBGMA), based upon limited knowledge and experience, has assumed an annual yield from the basin of 6,000 acre feet, although pumping has exceeded that amount in some years. Of the total pumped, GSW wells account for about 2,000 acre feet a year. For planning and budgeting purposes OBGMA assumes a total average annual extraction of 5,000 acre feet of water. OBGMA has obtained a grant to develop a hydrologic model of the basin in order to develop a more precise understanding of the annual safe yield and to provide a basis for implementing effective water conservation plans during drought periods. There has been a dramatic increase in the number of wells being drilled in the basin in the past 2 years, with 8 new wells in 2008 alone.

• The City of Ojai, OBGMA, and GSW have no mandatory water use limitation plan for conservation purposes in the event of a prolonged drought.

• A significant portion of the water that falls in the Ventura River watershed flows down the stream courses and into the ocean in large part because of the nature of the limited number of rainfall events that occur in only a few months which result in large storm flows. Some flows have been mandated to bypass storage in Casitas to support restoration of steelhead trout, and there is significant interest in further increasing flows based upon environmental concerns, the possibility of removing Matilija Dam, the lack of sediment for beach building, and the need for dilution flows relative to concerns about pollutants and algae buildup in the portions of the River that support year around flows in many years.

• There are presently two studies underway that will help in answering questions about a limited water supply in the Ojai Valley. One is the Ojai Basin Groundwater model mentioned above, which should be completed and in use by 2010, and the other is an HSPF hydrologic model of the Ventura River watershed now in draft form being completed by the Ventura County Watershed Protection District contractor TetraTech as part of a Ventura River watershed planning effort under a Proposition 50 grant.

• The City of Ojai could gain some understanding of the water resource constraint it is facing if it would undertake a relatively inexpensive and short term (less than six month) Ojai Valley water balance survey. This survey would not only be helpful in arriving at a responsible housing element, but would enable the City of Ojai to play a proactive role in the on-going Ventura River Watershed Planning effort mentioned above.

A Resource Constraint?

When does a limited water supply become a resource constraint that ought to be given serious consideration and dictate land use planning and development management decisions by a community?
Is it when the lack of a resource is actually creating a negative effect on the health, welfare and quality of life of the residents of a community? Or is it when greater development and growth can reasonably be predicted to have such an effect?

Is it when, with the addition of one new unit, someone’s tap goes dry? Is it when water purveyors place a moratorium on hookups? Is it when the cost of a hookup is set at a price well above the ability of the average home owner or farmer to pay? Is it when the cost of water makes crop production so unprofitable that agriculture begins to drop out of the economic pattern of the community? Is it when enforced limits on water use begin to affect the attractiveness of the environment surrounding a community with a tourism based economy? Is it when litigation over increased uses in a groundwater basin results in the adjudication and forced limits of well use in the basin? Is it when the imposition of water conservation measures during drought periods results in inequitable costs for normal and expected water consumption or when the imposition of those measures becomes burdensome on a community and the cost of effective enforcement of those measures places an additional inequitable economic burden on community members?

Or is it when informed planning predicts the reasonable possibility of those impacts if growth and development is not limited and carefully managed?

It would seem logical for the City of Ojai to address itself to this issue now as an important part of the preamble and policy mandate that drives the way community growth and the opportunities for meeting affordable housing needs are addressed in its housing element. That would certainly be preferable to realizing the existence and impact of water supply limitations as a result of environmental analysis only after a housing element which failed to include them had been decided upon. It would also likely be less expensive to do it up front.