A Par-5 Thirst : Exclusive Camarillo Country Club Far Exceeds Water Allotment

The exclusive Spanish Hills development being built in Camarillo already is using nearly twice the water that planners first projected, straining local ground-water supplies, water officials say.

When the developer is finished planting lush landscaping and covering hillsides left barren from grading, water officials say consumption at the hilltop club and golf course could almost triple the amount allocated by the county’s Groundwater Management Agency.

Spanish Hills could owe up to $30,000 in penalties when fines are calculated in December, county hydrologists said.

“They are exacerbating the problem,” said Lowell Preston, manager of the Groundwater Management Agency, which regulates pumping from many of the county’s underground basins.

Preston said the county’s only weapon to hold the line on overdrawing the county’s aquifers is economic sanctions, sometimes a weak incentive.

“I think we have a civic responsibility not to use more water than our allocation,” he said. “I don’t believe that we should plan to over-pump because we can afford to pay penalties.”

Spanish Hills representatives acknowledge that they are using more than their allocation of water as new golf course grass and landscaping takes hold.

But they say a $1.5-million, state-of-the-art irrigation system will bring water use within their allocation of 218 acre-feet per year once landscaping is established.

“There are 3,000 sprinkler heads all tied into a central computer,” said Scott Mendenhall, golf course superintendent. “The computer makes a calculation that sets water use for each sprinkler head each day.”

The computer divides the course and landscaping into “microclimates” to determine exactly the right amount of water needed for each area, and no more, said Pat Osthoff, one of the project’s construction managers.

“This is not a chintzy system,” he said. “We have spent a lot of money to make sure we have the proper irrigation system and drip system for the trees.”

Spanish Hills Golf and Country Club, which sits atop 430 acres of rolling hills in northwest Camarillo, was annexed by the city and approved in 1987 before the effects of the drought hit the county, said Matthew (Tony) Boden, the city’s planning director.

The 42,000-square-foot country club, with its formal dining room and ocean views, overlooks an 18-hole championship golf course on 218 acres. Memberships range from a $1,500 one-time buy-in and $35 per month for dining privileges only, to a $55,000 buy-in and $300 per month for full use of the course.

The development will eventually include 151 homes that will be built on acre sites ranging in price from $290,000 to $650,000, adjusted down at the first of the year from a high of $1.2 million. Condominiums are also planned.

Water for use by the homeowners will come from the city of Camarillo. The city directed Spanish Hills to install water-efficient irrigation systems, landscaping and appliances as a condition for approval of the project, Boden said.

The city was aware, he said, that water use would be high at first. But he said he believes consumption will drop as the plants become established. Once it is within its allocation for water, Boden said Spanish Hills will draw less water from ground supplies than it would have if the area had been developed with residences only.

“We were trying to allow for some open space and still allow for a reasonable use of the property that would blend in with the area,” Boden said.

Water for the golf course and landscaping will be pumped from an area called the North Las Posas Basin, which sits atop the Fox Canyon Aquifer.

About 80,000 acre-feet of water is pumped each year from Fox Canyon, the county’s largest underground fresh water supply. But only about 55,000 acre-feet is replenished each year through rain and other efforts to refill the aquifer, resulting in an annual deficit of 25,000 acre-feet.

(An acre-foot is enough water to supply two families for one year.)

Spanish Hills has an allocation of 218 acre-feet per year and reported that it used about 320 acre-feet for 1992. But Rick Farnsworth, a county hydrologist with the Groundwater Management Agency, said that real figure is closer to 400, based on his estimates.

He added that their water use may climb to 600 acre-feet this year. Instead of pumping fresh, drinking quality water for irrigation, the golf course should use reclaimed water, he said.

“Getting reclaimed water up there would be expensive,” Farnsworth said. “But I think all golf courses should use reclaimed water.”

Farnsworth said the ground-water agency passed an emergency ordinance prohibiting new wells in order to delay the Spanish Hills project. But once the ordinance expired Jan. 20, 1991, Spanish Hills was cleared to begin construction.

“The city of Camarillo could have stopped this or required reclaimed water,” Farnsworth said. “The GMA didn’t have any teeth to stop them once the ordinance expired.”