Bennett calls for Farmont water use review
by Kelly Feser Eells

The proposed Farmont Golf Course proved contentious the first time around - with six years ago between proposal and approval - and it appears this time will be no different.
Last October, the county's Planning Division circulated a Notice of Preparation regarding its intention to order a supplemental Environmental Impact Report for the golf course adjacent to Rancho Matilija.
According to Management Assistant Pat Richards, staff was then "in a fact-finding, data-gathering phase," soliciting comments on "environmental issues only," not the applicant's proposed project modifications. Yet local environmental activists viewed the proposed modifications to Conditional Use Permit No. 4588, "an approved but not constructed 18-hole private golf club," as too significant to warrant only a supplemental EIR. In fact, they - along with a number of other vocal project opponents - are not convinced that the first EIR (approved by the Board of Supervisors in 1993) is up to par.
"In all likelihood," Richards then predicted, "this will become a matter for the Board of Supervisors."
And so it has.
When approval of a contract authorizing preparation of a supplemental EIR was brought before the board's consent calendar on Dec. 18, Supervisor Steve Bennett called for postponement of the item and it was subsequently pulled from the agenda, to be resubmitted on Jan. 8. Pointing to the contract's scope of work, which makes no provision for further analysis of the water aspects of the project, Bennett said, "It simply makes common sense to look at the water equation again since this is a substantially different project."
One substantial difference proposed by the applicant, Intell Development Corporation, is its request to change the use of the property from an "approved private golf club" to a public golf course, thereby increasing "the permitted 35 rounds of golf per day" to 130 rounds per day. Another substantial difference is its request to eliminate Condition No. 73 of the CUP, "Establishment of an (1,500-acre) Open Space Easement."
Bennett explained that, while the previous project had "won approval by limiting water usage on the full 2,000 acres, essentially dedicating nearly all of the water from the 1,500 acres to the golf course," the potential loss of the open space offers "no assurance regarding overall water usage."
Indicating that the first EIR had been prepared with dated information, he added, "It is important that we use more current historical data as we analyze the impacts on this sensitive watershed."
Another significant aspect of the proposal, noted Bennett, concerns the steelhead trout, which had not been declared endangered when the project was first approved. Though Gary Barnett, president of Intell Development Corporation, said (the newly designated status of the indigenous fish) "really isn't an issue; the stream bed's dry most of the year, anyway," Bennett disagrees. When the board revisits the approval of the contract on Tuesday (Jan. 8, 9:30 a.m.), he plans on asking it to expand the scope of the supplemental EIR to include an analysis of the impacts of pumping groundwater for golf course irrigation.
"This issue," Bennett said, "is important because it affects all the other water users of Ventura River groundwater basin, as well as the steelhead trout and other natural species in the river."

© 2002 The Ojai Valley News

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