THE DROUGHT FARMING : Plan to Sell Creek Water Upsets Users Downstream

The city of Thousand Oaks is headed for a possible legal battle over a plan that would put an end to a practice of providing some local farmers with free water for irrigation.

Every year the city pours about 13,000 acre-feet of treated sewer water into the Conejo Creek, which winds through the Santa Rosa Valley, meets the Calleguas Creek, flows down to Mugu Lagoon and out to sea.

Farmers downstream depend on the water, which they have been using for free on their crops in their fields east of Camarillo since the early 1970s.

But that could end.

Caught in one of the worst droughts in memory in Ventura County, the city has devised a plan to pump the water out of the creek and sell it to the farmers located miles away on the parched Oxnard Plain.

The scheme has sparked heated criticism from some growers along the creek, praise from farmers farther away and could end up being argued over for months in state offices and courtrooms.

Thousand Oaks has applied to the state for rights to water in the creek. Opponents have until May 15 to file objections with the state Water Resources Control Board. A hearing on the issue will then be scheduled.

John Lamb--a descendant of Juan Camarillo, who first farmed the area more than a century ago--is vowing to put up a hefty fight, possibly in court. Without the water, his family’s farm, passed down for generations, could be in peril, he said.

“They’re born-again reclamationists,” John Lamb said of Thousand Oaks officials. “The city has been throwing the water away for all these years and now they see an opportunity to make a buck.

“They’re jumping on the drought bandwagon. We’re saying, ‘Wait a minute, we’re the guys in the white hats.’ ”

Lamb said his family has been using the water for 15 years and has spent $200,000 on pumps and crossings. The water, after all, is cutting through their land, he said. Over the years it has carved a 20-foot trench and caused a dirt farm road to slowly deteriorate. Plant life--including a nearly impossible to kill bamboo-like plant called arundo--abounds in the riverbed, making it difficult to cross the creek in some places.

Since the water was there, the Lambs felt they had the right to use it.

But Thousand Oaks officials see it another way.

Don Nelson, the utility director of Thousand Oaks, is fond of a saying that Mark Twain coined back in the rough-and-tumble days of California’s early settlers.

“Whiskey is to drink,” he said, with a grin. “Water is to fight over.”

If not for the city’s treated sewer water, the creek through the Santa Rosa Valley east of Camarillo would run dry--forcing farmers to find other sources of water anyway, Nelson said.

In addition, he said, the water could be better used on the Oxnard Plain where farmers are the hardest hit by the drought.

Thousand Oaks’ plan could alleviate some of the county’s water problems, Nelson said.

“We’re looking at this from a larger view,” Nelson said. “But we can’t accommodate everyone.”

As a result, the farmers along the riverbed would have to purchase all their water from local water districts, he said. The growers already are purchasing some of their water from the Camrosa County Water District. But they say it is costly: about $215 per acre-foot.

John Lamb’s father, Robert, said about 60% of the water his family uses is from the creek, and they barely can afford to replace it with the Camrosa water because the farm is not always profitable. “We’ve made money on this ranch two out of the last 10 years,” he said.

He said he is asking the state for the right to use some of the water. But the Lamb family faces an uphill battle, said Dave Cornelius, a senior engineer in the state Division of Water Rights.

“Thousand Oaks applied first,” Cornelius said. “First in line, first in right.”

Since the early 1980s, Thousand Oaks has been considering gaining rights to the water. Normally, cities automatically own the water in their sewage treatment plants, Nelson said. But since Thousand Oaks is pouring the water into the creek, it is part of the public domain, he said.

“Everyone told us that we couldn’t gain the rights to the water because it had never been done before,” Nelson said. But city officials wanted to try.

Officials met with the general manager of the Pleasant Valley County Water District to formulate a plan.

According to Le Roy Miller, the general manger of the water district, Pleasant Valley wants to build a pump station on the creek just south of the Ventura Freeway at the bottom of the Conejo Grade.

The company will then blend the water with ground water and send it through a pipeline to about 35 ranchers on the plain. Miller said they still have not decided how much they will pay Thousand Oaks for the water, but it will probably cost about $40 per acre-foot. One acre-foot equals 325,851 gallons of water, enough for a family of four to live on for an entire year.

“We’re talking about a lot of water,” Miller said. “We need it now. We needed it yesterday.”

Miller said they have depleted reservoirs “down to the mud” several times, forcing the district to ration water.

Rancher Tom Vujovich said his crops are running dry, and he’s “very, very worried and concerned.”

“We’re just trying to do our best and hoping next summer we’ll have the water,” Vujovich said. “We really think we’ve got a great project here. It’s going to be a great help to the county.”

But it is not going to be cheap, Miller said.

To get the water from the creek to the farms is going to cost the district between $6 million and $7 million. As a result, the district will have to increase the price of the water from $55 per acre-foot to about $120 per acre-foot to finance the improvements, Miller said.

He said the district would prefer to pump the water directly from the sewer plant, located off Hill Canyon Road in the Santa Rosa Valley. But to do so could cost millions more, he said.

As a result, the district wants to leave the water in the creek that cuts through half a dozen farms--including the Lamb family’s--upstream. But, Miller said, they have no intention of selling the water to the farmers because expensive equipment would be required to monitor the flow.

The farmers in the area are using about 1,800 acre-feet a year, far more than the district can afford to give away, Miller said.

As a result, he said, someone is going to lose.

Despite the conflict between the city and the farmers, Ventura County officials strongly support the plan as a crucial alternative to the water crisis.

And Simi Valley officials are considering doing the same with their treated sewer water. On Monday night, the City Council will vote on whether to spend $30,000 to study the issue.

Thousand Oaks’ proposal is “the best thing since sliced bread,” said Jerry Nowak, the deputy director of the county’s public works department.

“Right now most of the water is being lost to the ocean,” Nowak said. “We’re in a drought situation, and we need every drop we can get.”