City receives $5.5 million grant for water treatment plant
By Daniel Wolowicz camarillo@theacorn.com

Cleaner, better-tasting water is on tap for Camarillo Water Division customers who have long complained of poor-tasting drinking water.

The Camarillo City Council voted 5-0 last week to accept a $5.5 million state grant to help finance a $19 million water treatment facility that will soften and purify ground well water used by 12,700 homes in the city.

"For 20 years, I've been getting complaints from people on the taste and smell of water," Councilmember Charlotte Craven said. "This will resolve the problem if the process does what it's supposed to do."

The money was part of a $25 million grant received by 11 different Ventura County water agencies through state money funded under the $500 million Proposition 50.

The proposition, passed in 2002, is a measure intended to encourage water agencies in neighboring cities to work together to improve water quality and usage.

In 2006, the Watersheds Coalition of Ventura County was formed and the group, which includes Camarillo, submitted a $50 million grant proposal to the state.

By January 2007, the state announced the local watershed coalition would receive $25 million to move forward on various water improvement projects throughout the county.

Camarillo received the largest allocation of state money given to the agencies in the watershed coalition. The Calleguas Municipal Water District received $3.3 million, the second largest allotment of grant money.

Lucie McGovern, Camarillo's deputy director of public works, said the city hasn't decided where it will put the water treatment facility, but said the facility is expected to be built in the northeast region of Camarillo.

She said the facility will need about three acres and will include a 4,500-square-foot building. The city plans to break ground by spring 2009, but the project has not yet gone to bid.

The water treatment plant will reduce the amount of naturally occurring minerals in well water, including salt and manganese.

The treatment will improve the taste, odor and color of the city's drinking water.

McGovern said the city will finance the additional $13.5 million needed to build the new water treatment plant. She said the city has set aside money for the project for nearly a decade.

The Camarillo Water Division blends imported and well water for its drinking water.

About 60 percent of the water is imported from the Calleguas Municipal Water District, while the other 40 percent is drawn from the Fox Canyon Aquifer, which includes two underground wells- one active, the other used only in case of an emergency, McGovern said.

Once the water treatment facility is built, the city will draw 60 percent of its water from ground wells and only 40 percent will be imported.

McGovern said the city spends about 25 percent of its annual $7 million operating budget on imported water. She said the new treatment facility will reduce the amount spent on imported water.

She said, however, those savings will be offset by the cost of the water treatment facility.

McGovern said the city is still in the early stages of planning the treatment plant and didn't know whether additional employees would need to be hired to run the new facility.

In July, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the State Department of Health Services gave the Camarillo Water Division a clean bill of health.

The annual report is based on hundreds of water samples taken from multiple locations during the year.