Agency Moves to Cut Water Supply for Crops

The Metropolitan Water District took the first step Monday toward reducing water for San Diego avocados, Orange County nurseries, Riverside-area orange groves and other crops if water shortages continue into next year.

An important Metropolitan Water District of Southern California committee voted unanimously for a proposal giving the powerful water agency the authority to cut agricultural water in favor of maintaining supplies for residential and other urban customers.

Rainfall and mountain runoff in California have been below normal two years in a row, prompting fears of a drought should the conditions persist.

The action of the Water Problems Committee is expected to be approved today by the full board of the district, which supplies water from the Colorado River and the California Water Project to smaller water districts in San Diego, Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura counties.

San Diego-area growers said the decision could have a disastrous impact on local crops, particularly avocados, one of the county’s top three money-making crops.

“Of course, water is our most critical thing,” said Doug Anderson, a Pauma Valley grower of lemons, oranges and avocados. “If we haven’t got it, we’re in trouble.”

Vincent Lazaneo, the farm adviser for UC Cooperative Extension, said that, because avocado trees don’t begin producing a commercial crop until three or four years after they have been planted, the economic impact on owners of the county’s 35,000 acres of avocado trees would be “most severe.”

Charles Wolk, chairman of the San Diego County Farm Bureau, agreed.

“For tree crops, if they cut the water back, there’s not just an impact for the next year on that crop,” he said. “It’ll probably impact for another two or three years, and that’s really scary.”

Carl Boronkay, MWD general manager, said the strong action emphasizes the severity of the drought, which is reducing Southern California water supplies from Northern California mountains.

He said the action also shows how population growth has increased the area’s water-supply problem since the last drought in 1976-77, when the district met the water shortage with a voluntary reduction program.

That year, the district provided 1.4 million acre-feet of water. This year, it expects to pump about 2 million acre-feet. An acre-foot is enough water to supply an average family of four for a year.

Since ‘77, the district has recognized that its water supply may be threatened by contamination of huge, natural underground reservoirs in areas of Riverside and San Bernardino counties, where agricultural land is becoming residential, industrial and commercial.

Boronkay also said that failure to enlarge the California Water Project, which sends Northern California water to the south, has further tightened the Southern California water supply.

Finally, Boronkay said, a continued drought in Northern California may force the MWD to share its Northern California water with San Francisco Bay Area cities, as it did in the 1970s.

In the ‘70s, he said, an agricultural limit “would have been more controversial than it was today.”

“People are now sensitive that we are selling more and more water and supplies are limited.”

But San Diego County growers said it would be unfair to completely cut off agricultural users if urban customers were not going to be subject to rationing.

“Hopefully, there will be more equitable sharing of limited water to keep agriculture from really going under,” Wolk said.

Under the proposal, the MWD can reduce or cut off supplies of water for agricultural uses in 1989 if there is not enough water for the district’s priority customers--residences, industry, commercial developments and other urban uses.

The law gives urban customers first crack at MWD water. Water goes to agriculture only if there is a surplus.

Representatives of Orange County’s fast-growing nursery business, present at the committee meeting, expressed fear that they would be affected by a water cutoff.

Growers Want Local Control

Lynn Strohsahl, president of the Nursery Growers’ Assn. of California, said that the group supports the proposal but wants local water districts, rather than the MWD, to make the actual cuts.

“Local water districts are better equipped to assess the needs of those who conserve water already,” he said, pointing to several conservation steps he said the nursery business has taken.

Strohsahl also expressed doubts about the water conservation education campaign undertaken by the MWD.

“If the public is improperly educated on how to water the garden or whether to water a garden, the public will stop buying plants,” he said.

The presence of Strohsahl and other nursery operators from Orange County illustrated another change since the ‘70s drought. The nursery business has boomed since then, he said, experiencing a 100% growth, largely a result of growth in residential construction.

Representatives of the Municipal Water District of Orange County, the San Diego Water Authority and the Western Municipal Water District of Riverside County all praised the proposal as a necessary step to prepare for more drought.

But, with each of them having many agricultural customers, their representatives pressed the MWD for a detailed account of how the cuts would be made.

San Diego County growers said that, if their crops suffer, they won’t be the only ones to feel the economic pinch.

Wolk said agriculture is San Diego County’s third-largest industry--after the Navy and tourism--and that the income it generates fuels other sectors of the local economy.

“The guy who sells fertilizer, the guy who sells tractors, the clothing store, the food store, will all be affected,” Wolk said. “Anyone whose economy is driven by those agricultural dollars.”