CRITICS QUESTION WATER PLAN; CASTAIC AGENCY LACKS ABILITY TO TRANSPORT DISTANT SUPPLY PURCHASED IN 1988.

Byline: Teresa Jimenez Daily News Staff Writer

When the Castaic Lake Water Agency paid $5 million for some Kern County farmland back in 1988, the idea was to secure the property's state water allotment to help get the Santa Clarita Valley through drought and provide for future growth.

The water supply for the 8,554 acres, a cotton farm called Devil's Den, has yet to be used, though officials had predicted that it would be piped in as early as the mid-1990s.

Some CLWA critics say that even if the water were needed now, the agency would have no way of bringing it to Santa Clarita.

Though CLWA owns the rights to the 12,700 acre-feet of state water at Devil's Den, it does not have the right to transport the resource.

The State Water Project pipelines that bring water to Southern California belong, for the most part, to the Metropolitan Water District, which paid to build the infrastructure. The MWD also has rights to just about all the storage capacity at Castaic Lake.

``People think we have this big reservoir, but it's not for here,'' said Ed Dunn, a longtime critic of CLWA who was recently elected to the board.

As a result, CLWA would have to get permission from and pay a fee to MWD to use some of its pipeline and storage capacity.

``It boils down to spending money,'' said another critic, Alan Cameron.

``The problem is physical capacity. It's 100 percent spoken for. For CLWA to take more means that someone else would have to agree to take less.''

While Cameron's concerns are technically correct, all of the pipeline capacity is spoken for on paper only, said Don Long, chief of State Water Project contracts. In reality, water agencies around the state do not use their full allotments, and only about half of the State Water Project's capacity is used yearly, he said.

The aqueduct can deliver about 4 million acre-feet a year, but the average delivery remains around 2 million acre-feet, Long said.

So while there is reason to be concerned about pipeline capacity, it will take years before water providers will have to look for solutions, Long said.

``Under some ultimate demand, sometime, where everyone is taking their full allotment, will there be capacity?'' Long asked. ``That is so far in the future that it is hard to guard against.''

In the meantime, Debra Sass, a spokeswoman for the Metropolitan Water District, said sharing pipeline and storage space probably would not be a problem. MWD officials have never considered the possibility, however, because CLWA has not made a formal request, she said.

``If they wanted to move water to a different area, they would need an agreement with MWD, and it would depend on the time of year and how much,'' Sass said. ``But it would still be a very small amount of water - comparatively - and we would try to facilitate that.''

That situation could still be dangerous, Dunn said, because MWD would have the ability to back out of the agreement when it needs more water, though the distance from Devil's Den to Santa Clarita is just 170 miles.

``What would you do if you want to bring water down and MWD says no?'' Dunn asked.

CLWA critics also argue that the Devil's Den purchase is an example of the problems that will arise with the agency's proposal to buy 41,000 acre-feet of water from the Kern County Water Agency for $41 million. The CLWA board has yet to vote on the matter.

An acre-foot is almost 326,000 gallons, roughly the amount used by two average families in one year.

Dunn and Cameron remain concerned about CLWA's ability to secure pipeline capacity. They add that the price tag is deceptive.

The purchase does not include the actual cost of the water or the cost of obtaining pipeline and storage space from MWD, Cameron said. It also does not include the cost of treating and processing the water, he said.

``That's still an expenditure of tens of millions of dollars,'' Cameron said.