CAMARILLO : Council OKs Study of Water-Bank Plan

The Camarillo City Council approved a $7,000 study Wednesday that would examine a plan to buy inexpensive water during the rainy season and inject it into a city-owned well for extraction during the summer.

If the underground storage plan proves feasible, Camarillo would follow the lead of Oxnard, which has used 95% of the water that it has purchased and injected into that city’s aquifer.

Making the plan for a water bank attractive is a 36% discount offered by the Metropolitan Water District for the water that it sells between Oct. 1 and April 1, said John W. Elwell, Camarillo’s director of community services.

Camarillo now buys about 4,000 of its 8,000 acre-feet of water from the Calleguas Municipal Water District, which buys it from Metropolitan. Each acre-foot represents about 325,000 gallons, or enough to fulfill the annual needs of two families.

The city pumps the remaining 4,000 acre-feet from three city-owned wells, including the well into which it proposes to inject imported water.

According to Elwell, the water will be injected into the Fox Canyon Aquifer and will improve the quality of the water that the city pumps from it later.

How much water can be stored will be determined by the study. For each acre-foot it can buy in the winter and use in the summer, Camarillo would save at least $128, Elwell said.