WATER PLAN ALLOWS GROWTH POPULATION COULD TOP 428,000 BY 2030.

Byline: Eugene Tong Staff Writer

SANTA CLARITA - A draft regional plan intended to anticipate water demand continues to bank on conservation, storage and state-allocation deals to meet projected growth into 2030, when the Santa Clarita Valley's population could increase some 70 percent to more than 428,000.

This in the latest draft of the 2005 Urban Water Management Plan released by the Castaic Lake Water Agency, and it will be discussed later this month at the first of two public hearings.

The document, updated every five years under state law, offers planners long-range estimates of the regional water supply and how much development it could sustain. For years, local environmentalists have attacked the data in hopes of derailing growth.

According to the draft released in August, annual water usage is expected to swell over 25 years from 91,700 acre feet to 139,700 acre feet. An acre foot is the amount of water required to cover one acre one foot deep - or 325,851 gallons.

The local water supply from all current sources - including allocations from the State Water Project, groundwater and recycled sources - is projected at 125,680 acre feet for 2030. That amount is buttressed by more than 86,7000 acre feet of additional water from transfer deals, water-banking programs and decontamination of polluted wells.

``We can meet the demand through the water-supply program in the plan,'' said Mary Lou Cotton, water-resources manager for the Castaic Lake Water Agency. ``That's the purpose of the water-supply management program: to show how you can meet demand.''

But the strategy remains a sour point for some local environmentalists, who say the planning document cites sources that could be unreliable, especially in times of drought or during major disruptions such as earthquakes and levee breaks.

Lynne Plambeck, president of the Santa Clarita Organization for Planning the Environment, said local water planners are wrong to bank on state sources such as Castaic Lake, shared with the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California.

The Metropolitan agency, not the Castaic Lake agency, has the rights to most of the lake water, said Plambeck, also a member of the board of the Newhall County Water District, a local retailer. ``If there is a big interrupt(ion), we wouldn't have a right to depend on it.'' She accused the Castaic agency of evading that subject.

``To rely on something that you have absolutely no idea whether you can really get or not is not really any good.''

The Newhall water board President, Maria Gutzeit - who was critical of past water estimates until an independent analyst verified them - defended the water-banking and storage estimates if current practice continues.

``We need to continue to do water transfers and do water-banking,'' she said. ``If those don't happen, we won't be able to meet the population projections.

``All of Southern California - not just our area - is going to have to rely on water transfers and water storage. We're not doing anything that's not being acknowledged as how we have to (supply water to Southern California). And with the groundwater cleanup, we'll have more local supply, too.''

Attacks on the projections are key to arguments of those advocating slower growth or no growth. Development hinges on the water plan estimating what size population the local supply could sustain. Environmental groups had sued Castaic agency over the 2000 plan, claiming it relied on contaminated water and other uncertain sources.

A Kern County Superior Court judge found no wrongdoing, but the state Court of Appeal invalidated the plan, saying it failed to adequately address perchlorate contamination of local groundwater and this source's reliability.

The 2005 draft devotes more than three pages to the Saugus Formation - the aquifer in which perchlorate pollution shut down five wells and removed 10,000 acre feet of water per year from local supplies. The contamination impact and cleanup plan are outlined in a subsection.

``You basically take away the perchlorate problem, and the water supply is reliable,'' Cotton said.

Still, other critics include some of the valley's independent well owners, who contend the Castaic agency grossly underestimated local well-water use.

``A plan must not be approved that completely ignores these facts,'' said Bob Fleck of the Santa Clarita Valley Well Owners Association. ``To do so would put the water needs and rights of the citizenry at risk by assuming water is available for the use of others when in fact it is not.''

Castaic agency officials have said they intend to complete the process by early November.

Public hearings are scheduled for Sept. 28 and Oct. 26 to review the draft plan, which is available at the agency's Web site (www.clwa.org/about/publications.cfm). The meetings will be held at 7 p.m. at the Castaic Lake Water Agency board room, 27234 Bouquet Canyon Road, Saugus.

Eugene Tong, [phone]

eugene.tong(at)dailynews.com