HIGHER RIVER SALT OPPOSED VENTURA COUNTY WANTS CHLORIDE LEVEL KEPT AT 100 MPL.

Byline: Susan Abram Staff Writer

SANTA CLARITA - Ventura County officials oppose a revision by water quality experts that would allow higher limits of chloride into the Santa Clara River - possibly affecting agriculture - but would also offset a potential increase in taxes for Santa Clarita residents.

The Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board will discuss today allowing an interim level of 230 milligrams per liter of chlorides - salts - to enter the flow over the next 13 years.

Ventura officials are asking the board to maintain its objective of allowing 100 milligrams of chloride per liter for the waterway, saying the higher level could harm citrus, avocado and other crops along the river.

Salted water enters the river from household drains, then into the Saugus or Valencia water reclamation plants for treatment. While the plants can remove many pollutants, they are not designed to remove chloride.

Last year, the Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts kicked off a campaign to get Santa Clarita residents to give up their water softeners, a key source of chlorides.

If homeowners do not remove the devices, Santa Clarita residents could be charged an additional $400 a year to help build a $300 million, 45-mile pipeline from the Santa Clarita Valley to the ocean to remove the salt.

The sanitation districts currently are conducting research on the impacts of removing water softeners. But Ventura County supervisors said research has gone on long enough.

``If these two treatment plants are allowed to continue at their interim levels of chloride ... it could have devastating consequences for downstream beneficial uses within the watershed,'' wrote Supervisor Kathy Long in one letter.

``Extended studies to determine the appropriateness of the 100 milligrams per liter water quality object for crop protection are unnecessary - the impact is well understood and the Regional Water Board's previous action establishing this limit should be honored,'' Long wrote in another letter to the board.

Ventura officials said farmers are reporting leaf burns, a result of too much chloride.

But sanitation officials said the 100 milligram per liter objective has been misinterpreted.

Chloride levels are dependent on water released from the state, groundwater used and also on new housing.

``I think there's a misconception that they are going to see 230 levels, but that's not going to happen,'' said Vicki Conway, spokeswoman with the sanitation districts. ``We've been seeing reductions, which is great, but to date, our plants have never discharged at 100.''

Susan Abram, [phone]

susan.abram(at)dailynews.com