WATER INCUMBENTS CHALLENGED OPPONENTS SAY GROWTH HAS BEEN PUSHED.

Byline: ALEX DOBUZINSKIS Staff Writer

Does the Castaic Lake Water Agency board encourage overdevelopment by pushing for more water for the area, or does it have a duty to secure more water to meet the needs of inevitable growth?

That question has been at the heart of the race for four elected seats on the agency's board. Voters will give their answer at the polls Nov. 7.

Four incumbents are vying for new terms on the 11-member panel, while five challengers are trying to unseat them. Two of the challengers are in incumbent Peter Kavounas' district.

While some opponents say the agency encourages growth by securing water, incumbents say it is not their job to approve or disapprove development. They say that falls to city and county governments, and the water agency just advises them.

``We're never going to present an image that there's more water available than there actually is,'' Kavounas said. ``Our business is to say that there is water when there is water.''

But one of Kavounas' opponents, retired pension accountant Cam Noltemeyer, said the water agency enables excessive development by acquiring what she calls ``paper water,'' or uncertain sources of water the agency has signed up to obtain.

``What we need on (the board) are people who are really going to ... say, `Let's sit down and make sure that we have real water,' not paper water, not contaminated water that you haven't even started to treat yet,'' she said.

Kavounas, 44, who also heads up Glendale's water department, said one of his main priorities if re-elected will be to clean up pollution from the Whittaker-Bermite site.

A settlement with the company is pending, and the agency expects to get money to pump and treat wells tainted by the site.

``We've got to see them all the way through to the end, to see all the money that's necessary to clean them up,'' Kavounas said. ``And we're talking big money.''

At 25, Christopher Hall is the youngest candidate in the water board race and is Kavounas' other challenger. The financial analyst said he wants to bring his business know-how to the board, keep the area's water pure and maintain current water rates. This is his first run for public office.

``Basically it seems like a good place for me to start, and I want to make a difference for the community,'' he said.

Incumbent Tom Campbell, 39, a water systems engineer, faces only one challenger in his race, software engineer and businessman Isaac Lieberman.

Lieberman, 42, founded a Web site in 2000 (www.scsmargrowth.org) to argue against what he saw as rampant overdevelopment in the area. Lieberman, who describes himself as an ``activist problem-solver,'' was at the time bothered by the City Council's willingness to approve what he considered overdevelopment, and now he has similar concerns about the water board.

``I think the water board has been like the City Council,'' he said.

``Although their responsibilities are different, they have been generally bending over backward to support the ... excessively rapid pace of growth that we've been having here, and much of the cost of that has been falling on existing rate payers.''

Campbell said his priorities are securing an adequate and reliable water supply, cleaning up contamination at polluters' expense and fiscal responsibility.

``I want to build on the successes that we've had so far,'' he said.

Former Mayor Jan Heidt, who also has served on the Metrolink board, is challenging incumbent Ed Colley on the water board. She wants the water agency to encourage more conservation and to broadcast its meetings on cable-access television.

``I'm an independent thinker,'' she said. ``I don't think I would have gotten this far in life without thinking independently.''

Colley, who runs an ROTC program in the William S. Hart Union High School District, said he takes issue with lawsuits filed by activist groups that he believes could choke off the area's water supply.

``What we are legally obligated to do is to ensure that we have the water and the infrastructure in place for any development the Planning Agency approves,'' he said. ``So those of us on the board who understand that work to make sure that we're providing that infrastructure ... so that we do not have a water shortage because of future development.''

Carole Lutness, 64, a health care professional seeking to unseat incumbent Jacquelyn McMillan, took another view.

``I believe that this board, that gets its money from developer interests, is unduly influenced in the decision-making by those special interests,'' she said.

``I'm not against growth at all, but I think it should be the people who determine how we want this valley to grow.''

McMillan, a water policy adviser, could not be reached for comment.

Four of the 11 board positions on the Castaic Lake Water Agency are appointed. County government, the Santa Clarita Water Company, the Valencia Water Company and the Newhall County Water District each have one appointment.

In two years, voters will choose candidates for the three other elected water board seats.

alex.dobuzinskis(at)dailynews.com

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