Water District

A program to create a giant below-ground reservoir won Ventura County's largest water district statewide recognition, with Calleguas Municipal Water District receiving the Water Resources Leadership Award. The California Water Resources Assn. is expected to present Calleguas board President Patrick Miller and General Manager Don Kendall with the award today at the association's annual meeting in San Diego. "We were very surprised and proud," Kendall said Wednesday.

The Camrosa Water District has been bombarded with obscene phone calls and death threats after some Camarillo customers received bills showing a price hike of nearly 400% for water, General Manager Gina Manchester said Thursday. The threats began after more than 40 protesters appeared at the district's meeting Tuesday night. During the meeting, three of the five water district directors were served with notices that protesters would collect signatures to try to recall them.

Attorneys for the Three Valleys Municipal Water District will meet today ith attorneys representing various cities and water providers in an attempt to end a regional dispute among the agencies served by the district in the eastern San Gabriel Valley. The split has developed between the district's orthern and southern agencies over a state Senate bill that would expand the Three Valleys board from five to seven members and permit other elected officials to serve on the water district board.

Central Basin Municipal Water District officials said they were unaware of questions over the authorship of stories written about the agency by a news website and have instructed their public relations consultant to stop using the site. The Times reported this week that it could not verify the biographical information of many staff writers at News Hawks Review, which published more than 30 articles about the water district over the last year. The Times found that photos purporting to be of some News Hawks writers were available on other websites as stock images.

There may be gold in them thar Julian hills, but there isn't much water--in the hills or anywhere else. About 75 residents and merchants attended an emergency meeting Wednesday called by the Julian Community Service District to discuss a severe water shortage plaguing the community. Officials of the water district, which supplies downtown Julian, urged strong conservation measures, particularly by merchants. District officials discussed plans to drill a new well as soon as possible and to bring in portable toilets to be used instead of the public restrooms with flush toilets.

Work is beginning on two Irvine Ranch Water District projects in Turtle Rock near the Strawberry Farms Golf Course, including construction of a 10-million-gallon irrigation reservoir for reclaimed water. The reservoir, which will be partially buried on a vacant parcel, will provide storage and alleviate low-pressure problems during peak irrigation demand for fields surrounding Turtle Rock, and in East Irvine and along Jeffrey Road. Construction should be completed in summer 1999.

An employee's lawsuit claiming the Las Virgenes Municipal Water District failed to protect him from sexual harassment has been dismissed by a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge. But the attorney for David Sarti said his client will appeal the ruling handed down late last month by Judge Dzintra Janavs. In the suit filed last year, Sarti said that his supervisors were aware that he endured same-sex harassment by a co-worker for a number of years, but did nothing to prevent it.

The Las Virgenes Municipal Water District on Thursday released a budget proposal that includes a number of service rate hikes as high as 10% to some customers to offset increased water costs from its supplier, district officials said. The board of directors will meet Monday to consider the proposed rate hike and schedule public hearings before voting on it within the next 21 days, said Bobbe Wymer, a district spokeswoman.

The gentlemanly world of California's powerful water industry has suddenly been pulled into the mud of a wide-open political campaign, replete with unprecedented lobbying and allegations of back-room deals and vote swapping. At stake is control of the Metropolitan Water District, the world's largest water agency and the primary source of water for more than 15 million Southern Californians in a district extending from Ventura County to the Mexican border and inland to Riverside.

Jim Mizell has been appointed president of the Santa Margarita Water District, the agency's board announced Thursday. Mizell, chief financial officer of Koll Construction, has been on the board for eight years. The water district is the second largest in Orange County, serving 52,000 customers in Mission Viejo, Rancho Santa Margarita, Coto de Caza, Las Flores and inland southern Orange County.