Huge Boost in Tax for Water Reclamation Plant Sought : Recycling: The West Basin district will hold a hearing to discuss the levy, which may rise from the original $10 an acre to $30 for homes or $120 for businesses.

Officials planning to build a $180-million water reclamation system in the South Bay will hold a public hearing Monday to discuss a huge boost in a special property tax being used to finance the project.

Last year, the West Basin Municipal Water District started levying the tax, called a water standby charge, and set an initial rate of $10 per acre for homes and business owners. The $10 rate also applied to owners of property that was less than one acre.

Under a plan that the district’s governing board will present in Monday’s hearing, the tax will jump to a minimum of $30 an acre for homeowners and $120 per acre for businesses--and remain at those rates at least until the year 2000.

The charge affects property owners in all South Bay communities except Torrance and Los Angeles. Those cities do not buy water from the West Basin district, which is a wholesale water agency.

The new rates would apply to all property owners in the district except those whose monthly water consumption is 3,740 gallons or less. In those cases, the higher standby charge would be reduced by 50%.

West Basin officials acknowledge that the increase is steep. But they say it would ensure construction of a reclamation system that by the year 2000 would recover up to 70 million gallons of water a day from treated waste water piped from the Hyperion sewage plant in Playa del Rey into Santa Monica Bay.

The water would not be for drinking but would be used to cool power plants and irrigate parks and highway medians. That would free enormous amounts of drinking water used for those purposes, officials say.

“If we had this system today, we wouldn’t be on water rationing,” said Richard Atwater, the West Basin district general manager. “This will drought-proof the area.”

So far there has been no organized opposition to the proposed tax increase. Several groups have expressed support for the proposal, including the Los Angeles Taxpayers Assn., which mainly represents businesses, and Heal the Bay, an environmental group based in Santa Monica.

But the size of the increase is daunting even to supporters. Arch Hardyment, executive director of the Taxpayers’ Assn., says his group had a tough time endorsing the new levy because the proposal will not be put to a public vote.

Instead, the new charge, like the $10 levy imposed last year, is expected to be imposed by a simple majority vote of the West Basin’s five-member governing board.

“While generally we’re not crazy about this form of financing, there are enough positive aspects to the project to outweigh our reservations,” Hardyment said.

The reclamation system would include a treatment plant slated to be built on a 23-acre site at El Segundo and Sepulveda boulevards, with construction starting this summer and lasting two years. The plant’s initial cost will be $45 million, with the price rising to $125 million as new capacity is added through the year 2000.

Among the components of the system are a $2-million pump station at Hyperion and a $4.5-million conduit that will send waste water to the reclamation plant. The project calls for a $17-million pipeline system to distribute the reclaimed water. The pipeline network would eventually be expanded to 50 to 60 miles, bringing its total cost to $34 million.

Among the recipients of water from the plant would be the Chevron oil refinery in El Segundo, the Mobil Oil Co. refinery in Torrance, Hollywood Park, local parks and Caltrans median strips.

Supporters of the project say reclamation of Hyperion waste water will mean less pollution for Santa Monica Bay and a slowing of the region’s consumption of imported drinking water.

“People don’t realize that the water flowing out of Hyperion is equal in volume to the 10th-largest river in California,” said Adi Liberman, executive director of Heal the Bay. “By recycling this water, we avoid having to purchase more expensive water elsewhere. It gives the basin a steady supply of water, making droughts less of a threat.”

To pay for the project, the West Basin last year imposed the $10-per-acre charge on the 213,615 parcels of property in the district, which includes Culver City, West Hollywood and Malibu in addition to South Bay cities.

The higher rates, district officials say, will be the final level of taxation needed to pay off bonds being used to finance the project.

The new standby charge could begin to decline by the year 2000 as the district pays off the bonds with income from its sale of reclaimed water. Under the bond financing being used, the district faces annual payments of about $8.5 million through 2021, Atwater says.

“If (water sales) go really well, we could probably eliminate the standby charge by 2005, but if they go half as well as that, we won’t be able to eliminate them until 2010,” Atwater said. “It really depends on the water sales.”

Taxpayers groups are uncomfortable with such financing because it involves a sizable levy that will not be subject to a public vote.

“In general, we’re very concerned that we protect the integrity of public participation by voting on these issues,” said Joel Fox, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn., a statewide group representing homeowners.

Fox, however, said his group is not taking a position on the West Basin plan because it has not closely studied the project. Others say that despite its cost, the project appears worthwhile.

Liberman of Heal the Bay said: “I’ve gone over the figures with my staff, and our feeling is that this is a good deal for the ratepayers.”

Monday’s hearing will tell whether the public shares Liberman’s view. West Basin spokeswoman Sarann Kruse said: “We want to get all the public input we can get. So far, we haven’t had a public outcry.”

The hearing is scheduled for 7 p.m. Monday at the Joslyn Community Center, 1601 Valley Drive, Manhattan Beach.