Need a solution for the shortage

Residents of the Santa Susana Knolls confirmed this week what many of them had been whispering about for years.

There are more homes in the Knolls than there is water available to properly serve them.

The city's public works department- which operates Ventura County Waterworks District No. 8- has enacted a water service moratorium on all new construction projects in the portion of the Knolls served by the Alta Vista water tank, meaning that even those property owners who've already obtained grading permits cannot begin building.

For a new project to begin, the county requires a "will serve" letter from the water district- and, according to public works, the city won't be giving out any more of those until a solution to the water shortage is found.

The decision came about after public works staff determined, in the process of completing an uptodate water master plan for the district, that the 126,000 gallon capacity of the Alta Vista tank is 4,000 gallons below the county's requirement for the domestic, emergency and storage demands of the densely packed community nestled in the hills.

It now appears that master plan was overdue.

Though this shortage will not impact the everyday lives of current residents, it could rear its ugly head in the event of a catastrophic fire- and that's where the biggest concern lies.

The city says it planned to replace the tank with a 1milliongallon facility at a higher elevation in 2011 as part of its upcoming waterworks Capital Improvement Program- but unfortunately, the well is drying up quicker than officials anticipated.

Apparently, city staff was unable to foresee the shortage because construction in the Knolls came about not as one large development with hundreds of units, but in a piecemeal fashion that kept the situation under the radar.

Well, now residents have cause for concern- and it's the city's job to do something about it, and do it fast.

Fortunately there is money available in a water system improvement fund to make the necessary changes, whatever the City Council determines those to be. Now it's just a matter of maneuvering through the legal hoops to get the job done.