WSP12998 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

.I ~ Imperial water fight nearing a boil By Dale Kasler and Stuart Leavenworth -- Bee Staff Writers Published 2:15 a.m. PDT Tuesday, June 17,2003 For months, Southern California has spurned a historic water-sharing agreement with its rural neighbors, a deal that Gov. Gray Davis says is crucial to avoiding a statewide water crunch. Now, some state officials and others say the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California's resistance is tied to a bold effort to seize gobs of agricultural water from nearby Imperial Valley. They say the powerful MWD is reluctant to make peace if it thinks it simply can grab the water it needs. "Part of it is they hope to get water for free," said Richard Katz, a senior adviser to Davis. The situation comes to a head Monday when the U.S. Bureau of Rec1amation will issue the results of a special evaluation of Imperial's irrigation practices. If the bureau finds Imperial is wasteful, that could free up extra water for MWD and its 17 million urban customers. Not surprisingly, MWD is arguing for reducing Imperial's supply. It recently told the bureau that Imperial could surrender 22 percent of its water without skipping a beat. That rankles Imperial water officials, who sense a naked grab for water. "The interesting coincidence is that the amount (MWD) asked Imperial to be cut back is the amount it takes to fill their aqueduct," said Imperial Irrigation District attorney David Osias. MWD denies that's why it's reluctant to ratify Davis' water-sharing agreement. Rather, it says, it objects to Davis' plan to spend public dollars to make the agreement work. This messy Southern California fight has implications for the whole state. If Southern California . can't resolve its water situation, it faces the continued cutoff of up to 800,000 acre-feet of Colorado River water, enough to supply up to 1.6 million households for a year. Although MWD says it can absorb the loss through conservation, many experts say MWD will look to the water- rich rice farms ofthe Sacramento Valley for help, putting new pressure on the overworked Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. MWD already made a deal this year to import more water from the Sacramento Valley, paying millions to rice farmers in a first-of-its-kind voluntary deal. In a weird, almost comical subplot that seems typical of California water fights, the governor tried to kill the transaction last week by refusing to store MWD's water at the state's Lake Oroville reservoir -- meaning the water would flow out the Golden Gate. The U.S. government swam to MWD's rescue, scolded Davis for wasting water and offered to store it at federally owned Lake Shasta until delivery. On Friday Davis said he would cooperate with efforts to move the water south. In any event, the dispute over Imperial's water usage is scaring farmers everywhere. Stuart Somach, a Sacramento lawyer who represents farmers in Northern California and Imperial, said Northern California farmers view MWD and the Bureau ofRec1amation as working in cahoots to grab Imperial's water -- and would think twice about selling their water south again. Farmers "are very wary of the whole thing," Somach said. "They point to it as a cautionary note of what happens when you deal with the big bad Southern California urban entities." The situation represents something of a role reversal for the Interior Department, which directed that more water be sent to desperate farmers in the Klamath River basin last year. This time, Interior, the Bureau ofRec1amation's parent agency, is considering whether to use an obscure facet of Western water law to wrest supplies from Imperial.