A proposal to install a network of pipelines to carry recycled water east of Napa where an increasing number of wells run the risk of going dry may be shelved for a less ambitious project, according to county officials.

The Napa County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday could consider extending a recycled water pipeline from Napa Valley State Hospital to the Napa Valley Country Club to carry recycled water to the area known as Milliken-Sarco-Tulocay, or MST.

An earlier proposal — a network of pipelines to carry recycled water paid in part with assessments from property owners — was met with significant opposition, Supervisor Bill Dodd said Friday.

“I think we needed to come up with another plan,” he said. “I think the biggest concern was equity and need.”

According to a new map, the new recycled water project would extend from Napa State Hospital to the Napa Valley Country Club, which has repeatedly said it wants the recycled water to irrigate its golf course.

Felix Riesenberg, principal water resources engineer with the Napa Sanitation District, said the new proposal is to build a pipe 8 to 24 inches in size, large enough to accommodate the golf course and other property owners who want to use recycled water. Napa Sanitation District would sell the tertiary-treated water to the country club and other willing owners who would pay their fair share of the project. The county could also install conservation measures, study recharging the groundwater tables and ask the city of Napa to supply water to a limited number of properties in the MST area — an idea Napa Mayor Jill Techel greeted with caution.

“We said ‘let’s sit down and talk about it,’” Techel recalled Friday.

The grassroots group that has acted as a liaison between the community and county officials concluded that importing recyled water is the best chance of not having more wells run dry.

GULP member Fred Swingle, a retired chemist who has lived on 1 acre since 1977, said the new proposal will not solve the problem.

“(But) it”s better than doing nothing,” he added.

Scott Zion, president of the Napa Valley Country Club, said the club representatives were “very disappointed” to understand that the earlier MST proposal was no longer under consideration.

The club relies on a well to irrigate the front nine, Zion said. “If we lose that well, we lose that golf course.”

The club and more than a dozen vineyard owners and homeowners have proposed to pay for their share of the new pipe, Zion said. To this end, Napa Valley Country Club has also applied to the county for permission to build a pond to store the recycled water, Zion and county officials said Friday.

Silverado Resort, the other country club in the MST area, however, are among the many property owners who have expressed no interest in paying for a recycled water pipeline.

“It’s all about economics,” Silverado Resort General Manager Kirk Candland said last week.

Frank Farella, owner of a 28-acre Farella-Park Vineyard, also doubts the recycled water project is economically viable.

“It’s a question of how much it’s going to cost,” Farella said.

Attorney James Fitch, who lives on 9 acres where he grew up, said the proposed assessment was unfair, in part because property owners would have to pay regardless of how much water was used.

Referring to the weighted voting system for the assessment proposal, Fitch said a few large property owners could control the outcome of any vote. Water conservation — including a moratorium on new development — is the best answer to the area's water problem, he said.

LaVern Mack, another longtime resident, also believes water conservation and education are part of the solution.

One way to educate the public said Mack, is to have everyone install a meter on all wells. That would let them know how much water is there.

Other residents said they were concerned that recycled water used for irrigation could pollute the groundwater tables.

While long-time residential owners blame the vineyards’ water usage for causing wells to run dry, Farella, who bought his property in 1979, believes residential development of recent years — not vineyards — have caused the water problems in the MST area.

Vineyards on drip irrigation use little water, Farella said.

In the meantime, Mack hopes that a solution will be found to protect the groundwater table.

“We've got to find a way to be neighbors,” he said.