OJAI : Groups to Try to Form Water Agency

The Ojai City Council and the Casitas Municipal Water District pledged Tuesday to work together to form a new public agency to manage Ojai’s underground water basin.

The separate actions allow their staffs to start negotiating on how to form a joint agency with the Ojai Water Conservation District to manage all pumping and sales of basin water.

Ojai ranchers and smaller water companies who rely on the basin’s well water have been invited to meet in Oak View this afternoon to discuss their participation and support for such an agency.

The Ojai basin, which underlies the city of Ojai and the eastern Ojai Valley, supplies 80% of the water for 7,500 city residents and is the main supply for many citrus groves. It has never been controlled by any public or private agency.

The Ojai Water Conservation District has no authority to regulate pumping or sales of the basin’s water.

The basin’s depletion after a drought in the late 1940s led to the building of Lake Casitas reservoir in 1959 to ensure additional water for area ranchers.

Now that the reservoir is at less than half its capacity, many ranchers and smaller water agencies are drilling new wells or reviving old ones.

Ojai and Casitas officials said they fear that if the basin goes dry again, those who rely on well water will turn to Casitas, which is already stressed to meet current customers’ demands.