STORAGE PLANS SHIFT FOR WATER AGENCY OFFICIALS IDENTIFY 'FATAL FLAWS' IN RESERVOIR.

Byline: Jim Skeen Staff Writer

LANCASTER - A proposal to create a reservoir adjoining the Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve appears to be dead, but plans are moving ahead to store water by injecting it underground.

Officials at Antelope Valley-East Kern Water Agency, the region's major water wholesaler, are cooling to the idea of creating a reservoir by building a dam between Fairmont and Antelope Buttes.

``We have identified some fatal flaws,'' AVEK general manager Russ Fuller said. ``I'm not optimistic about that project.''

The reservoir would be subject to high evaporation rates for a relatively shallow lake in a desert climate and pose the potential danger of attracting water fowl into an area used for low-level military flights.

One water storage project that is moving ahead is a plan by Los Angeles County Waterworks to inject water down wells, replenishing the valley's underground aquifer.

A draft environmental impact report has been completed on the project, and the county is looking to start pumping water underground in 2003.

``We are eager to get that project under way,'' said county Public Works spokesman Ken Pellman.

Like the Antelope Buttes reservoir idea, the well injection project is an effort to save water during wet years for use during dry times.

The county plans to spend $800,000 to $1 million to build 11 injection wells at five sites located in an area roughly bordered by avenues K and M and between 10th and Sixth streets west. The most that could be stored is approximately 6,000 acre-feet of water - enough to supply 6,000 families for a year.

Partnered with the county on the project is AVEK and the U.S. Geological Survey, which is interested in stopping land subsidence resulting from the overdrawing of groundwater.

The idea for the Antelope Buttes reservoir has cropped up periodically over the past 40 years. Back in the 1970s, plans for it were originally included in the $71 million facilities construction project that connected AVEK to the California Aqueduct. The reservoir was later dropped because of the cost.

AVEK had envisioned a 31,000-acre-foot reservoir that would have been bounded by 150th and 160th streets west and Avenues E and G.

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Proposed reservoir site