Planned Filtration Plant Angers Customers, Water Agency

Calleguas Municipal Water District will embark in August on long-standing plans to construct a filtration plant at Bard Reservoir.

But instead of popping corks, the water agency and its customers in eastern Ventura County are grousing.

Calleguas officials say the crystal blue water in the reservoir is already so clean that it doesn’t need extra filtering. In fact, customers have been drinking it since the reservoir was built more than 25 years ago.

“We re-chlorinate,� said Calleguas General Manager Donald Kendall. “This has been done for years and years all over the U. S., so tell me where the health risk is. We just don’t think it’s necessary.�

The cost of the plant is expected to exceed $50 million, or about $100 for each of the estimated 500,000 Ventura County customers who drink water supplied by Calleguas.

Last year, the five Ventura County cities that Calleguas supplies passed along a 28% rate increase to their customers. Part of that increase was to be used to finance the construction of the Bard filtration plant.

State health officials say Calleguas has no choice but to build the plant. Without it, they say, Bard Reservoir could become a host for germs that can cause serious stomach ailments.

“It’s an open reservoir and subject to exposure to infectious agents,� said David Spath, chief of the technical program branch of the office of drinking water in Sacramento.

Calleguas officials were notified two years ago that its open reservoir falls under the Surface Water Treatment Rule, a stringent version of a federal regulation adopted by the Environmental Protection Agency.

Passed in 1989, the law requires agencies that operate open reservoirs to filter impurities that may contaminate them.

The rule applies to any reservoir where flows of runoff carry animal waste and debris. Dirty water is the source of parasites such as giardia, a virus that can cause diarrhea.

Bard Reservoir has also failed to meet state guidelines governing the level of sediment in the water, Spath said. Concerns about germs in open reservoirs and sediment levels prompted officials to impose the rule, he said.

The Department of Health Services has threatened to fine Calleguas $25,000 a day if it fails to build the plant by July 1, 1994. Calleguas is now reviewing a grading contract for the plant. Construction is to begin next year.

But Calleguas officials said there have been no problems associated with the water.

Although Ventura County health officials reported more than 400 cases of giardia infections in 1990, none have been linked to drinking water.

David Bustamante, an operations manager for Calleguas, said the district’s water is piped from several sources. However, he said, “there have been times when we’ve taken water (only) from Lake Bard for 10 days, and we’ve had no complaints.�

Officials in some cities around the county are also having trouble swallowing the argument that building a filtration plant will make the water safer.

“We’ve lived all these years without it,� Simi Valley Mayor Greg Stratton said. “We don’t need it, so why are we paying for it?�

A delegation of Thousand Oaks city officials met last week with state legislators to complain about the Surface Water Treatment Rule, Thousand Oaks City Manager Grant R. Brimhall said.

The rising cost of water is difficult for residents and businesses to understand, Brimhall said.

“It’s schizophrenic over-regulation,� Brimhall said. “I think it’s good, pure water. I’d give it to my grandkids and anyone else I love.�

Camarillo Councilman Michael Morgan said officials from his city did not complain about the reservoir until recently, when the possibility of losses in revenue from the state forced them to consider major spending cutbacks.

“We’re looking around for programs that aren’t completely necessary,� he said. And officials are asking for relief from state mandates that require local governments to fund certain programs such as improving water quality.

“The water quality’s good� at Bard Reservoir, he said. “For us to spend $50 million to make it better, with the economy the way it is, maybe it’s time to reconsider that expenditure.�

Calleguas project manager Ron Marchelleta said officials considered and rejected two other options before deciding to build the filtration plant.

Officials could have complied with the state rule by covering the whole 231-acre reservoir with plastic, something akin to a giant pool cover, Marchelleta said. But the reservoir’s irregular shape and three-mile perimeter made it too difficult to cover, he said.

Calleguas also rejected a proposal to abandon the reservoir, he said. If all lines to Los Angeles were cut off, the reservoir could supply all the district’s customers for a month before it would run out of water.

“There would be no reliability for the county� in the case of an emergency, he said. “This is our reliability.�

BACKGROUND

Bard Reservoir is located between Simi Valley and Thousand Oaks southeast of Olsen Road. Built in 1965, it holds 3.4 billion gallons of water and supplies the cities of Camarillo, Moorpark, Oxnard, Simi Valley and Thousand Oaks. It was named after Richard Bard, the first president of the Calleguas Municipal Water District’s board of directors. Water in the reservoir has already been chlorinated and filtered once by the Metropolitan Water District before it is piped into the county from Northern California.