MWD to Cut County Water Deliveries by 50% : Drought: The latest reduction affects Simi Valley, Thousand Oaks, Oxnard, Camarillo and Moorpark.

About 450,000 residents and 520 farmers in Ventura County will face the most severe water cutbacks in history as a result of action Monday by the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California.

The MWD, which provides some or all of the water used by Simi Valley, Thousand Oaks, Moorpark, Oxnard and Camarillo, decided in emergency session to cut water deliveries by 50% overall effective April 1.

Officials of each city except Moorpark said they will pass along the MWD cuts to customers. Moorpark officials said they will decide later this week on the levels of cutbacks.

To reach the 50% level, the MWD will reduce water to cities by 30% and to farmers by 90%. It was just Friday that the MWD imposed a 20% reduction on cities and a 50% reduction on farmers.

“We hope, we really hope these are the last cuts this year,” said Bob Gomperz, a district spokesman.

The cutbacks were announced even as the second storm in a week dropped much-needed rain on the area.

“Some people feel that the rain will take us out of this water shortage,” said county Supervisor John K. Flynn. “But it will take several years to get us out of the drought.”

The MWD, which serves the county through the Calleguas Municipal Water District, had considered cutting off farmers completely to keep reductions to cities to 25%.

Flynn said the MWD made the right choice. “We want to keep the economy going,” he said. “We don’t want to see agriculture disappear from the county.”

Some agricultural operations have ground-water sources, but the 90% cut will make survival difficult for some of the county’s small farmers, particularly in the Moorpark area, said Donald Reeder, manager of the Pro-Ag farm management company and president of the Ventura County Farm Bureau. He said many small farmers in that area cannot afford their own wells to supplement imported water.

About 177 farms in the Moorpark area and 25,000 residents in and near that city use water from the Ventura County Water Works District No. 1, which receives 75% of its water from the MWD.

“Even if we only get cut back by 75%, we could be done for . . . as far as farming goes,” Reeder said. “Let’s say we only get half an acre-foot when lemon trees usually use two acre-feet a year. That would be enough to barely keep the trees alive, with no leaves.”

Farmers who use about 10,000 acre-feet a year of MWD water--less than a 10th of the 110,000 acre-feet of imported water used in the county annually--are being cut more severely because they contract for less expensive water that is the first to be reduced during supply shortages.

But Reeder said the cuts are no less hard to take for farmers.

“Nobody in their right mind who signed those contracts ever assumed that Southern California would run out of water,” Reeder said.

Water Works District No. 1 had only been considering 30% cuts to farmers and 15% to urban users, but will consider increasing reductions based on Monday’s announcement, District Manager R. Reddy Pakala said.

To partially offset the new cutback, the Camrosa Water District, which serves 300 farms east of Camarillo and in the Santa Rosa Valley, is working on a delivery system that would allow farmers to receive undrinkable ground water for their crops.

“We are trying to squeeze as much water as possible for farmers so they can stay in business,” said District Manager Gina Manchester.

Officials in Simi Valley, Thousand Oaks, Oxnard and Camarillo said they will pass on the MWD cuts to customers. Simi Valley and Thousand Oaks get nearly all their water from the MWD. The district supplies Oxnard with two-thirds of its supply and Camarillo with about half.

“We’ll fold them into our program,” Simi Valley Mayor Greg Stratton said of the MWD reductions. But he said he objects to the MWD paring cities unless farmers are cut off completely.