Surplus Water Is Available but Goes Unclaimed, Report Says

Large quantities of surplus water could become available to Southern California cities and Central Valley farmers if laws that encourage water trades were fully put to use, according to a legislative report released Tuesday.

Free-market sales of water could produce as much water as the voter-rejected Peripheral Canal might have, said Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Sepulveda), the author of a 1982 statute that assures that water can be traded without risk of losing water rights.

But there have been no sales completed under the law’s provisions.

Katz and three other legislators, who discussed the new report on water trades at a Capitol press conference, blamed the failure of water districts to make use of the law on an unjustified fear of losing water rights and on “a 1930s mentality,” which views the construction of new facilities as the only way to make additional water available to the drier southern end of the state.

The report describes in detail a hypothetical example of what Assemblyman Larry Stirling (R-San Diego) described as “water ranching”--the decision by individual farmers to sell some of their water instead of using it to produce crops or raise cattle.

The study, conducted by researchers at the University of California, Davis, and at the Hastings College of Law, describes a hypothetical sale between water districts in two agricultural counties, one where water is abundant and cheap and another where it is expensive and scarce.

Water users in the Modesto and Turlock water districts in Stanislaus County would earn $2.8 million a year by selling 150,000 acre-feet of water to consumers in Kern County. Obtaining the relatively cheap supply of water from the north would save the Kern County purchasers $2.4 million.

An acre-foot of water is enough to supply all the needs of a typical family for a year.

Environmentalists long have argued that encouraging a free market in water would increase conservation efforts and help avoid the costly construction of dams and other facilities for transporting water south from Northern California.

But the reasons why such sales have been difficult to consummate may have as much to do with emotion as they do with economics. Local communities resist sending their water entitlements to other parts of the state.

“They call it the ‘Chinatown’ syndrome,” said Warren Abbott, general counsel for the Metropolitan Water District. The reference is to the Hollywood movie involving a plot to snatch up the water rights of one region to develop another.

While short-term water purchases could be useful, Abbott said, Southern California needs an assured long-term supply to replace close to 700,000 acre-feet of Colorado River water that will be lost to Arizona.

“There’s too much emotional pressure against selling water,” agreed Gerald Meral, director of the Planning and Conservation League.

Surveys have repeatedly shown a willingness of growers to sell water, said Meral, a deputy director of water resources in the Administration of former Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr. But Meral said he spent two years unsuccessfully trying to persuade rice growers to sell some of their water to the state during dry years.

“We had a study that showed the effect on the local economy would be invisible,” Meral said. “But the farmers I talked to said, ‘Don’t tell my neighbors.’ ”

At Tuesday’s press conference, Stirling said he had worked with the San Diego County Water Authority on a survey of Northern California water users who might be willing to sell water to San Diego. The results showed that there might be 230,000 acre-feet for sale, Stirling said.

But later, Robert James, chief counsel for the Water Resources Department, said, “Doing a survey and getting people to sign their names on contracts are different. When you get down to getting the details of a contract worked out, you get into problems.”

James and Stirling agree that short-term water contracts would not satisfy all of Southern California’s future water needs. Both believe that the state will have to increase the ability to move water south from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.