Water-use gripes flow at forum

LA CRESCENTA — An election forum for six candidates running for three available seats on the Crescenta Valley Water District Board of Directors remained civil as they sparred over sewage rates, rainwater collection and conservation.

The campaign for three spots on the five-member board has emerged as the largest race in recent years, observers said. More than two dozen residents attended the forum, which was hosted by the Crescenta Valley Community Assn., a group that tries to bridge the multiple jurisdictional borders in the Crescenta Valley.

Water rates are slated to rise every year for five years, a response to years of drought and reduced water shipments from the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which supplies much of the area’s water. La Crescenta saw water use drop 22%, compared with a five-year baseline average, the steepest drop off in the area, officials reported.

The turnout at Wednesday’s forum and electoral competition can only benefit the community, Vasken Yardemian, the board president, said.

Board members each had a few minutes to introduce themselves, their backgrounds and education as they pitched their vision for the water district.

Crescenta Valley Town Council President Steve Pierce, who moderated the event, prompted the candidates to address the consumer issues that have cropped up as a result of the changing water landscape.

“How do you tell an elderly couple on a fixed income who hardly uses that much water that their rates are going to go up?” he asked.

Water conservation was a hot topic, and one that board challenger Wendy Alane Smith said she was very passionate about, so much so she interrupts her husband’s showers.

“I run in with a pan and take body water and go use it to water plants,” she said. “No one else is going to do that except me. I’m an extremist.”

But she was interrupted by a couple who said they too reuse shower water.

Don and Esther Norbut said they were active in the community and worried that water lines might burst, an expensive problem that has plagued Los Angeles authorities in recent weeks. The Norbuts said they have been hit hard because water from their pool evaporates quickly.

“It’s not that I like to fill it up, but if I don’t, it’ll contribute to filth in the neighborhood,” he said.

Local resident Mike Meyers said he owned more than one acre of land and had come to the forum because watering two days a week was not enough.