Power Failure

There is an unexpected and unfortunate hitch in the water-exchange agreement between the Imperial Irrigation District and the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California that could have a major effect on the future of such trades involving Colorado River water.

The Imperial-Metropolitan deal has been opposed, reluctantly, in federal court by the Coachella Valley Water District, which contends that the agreement jeopardizes Coachella’s rights to Colorado River supplies as guaranteed by legal compacts going back 50 years or more. Everyone will benefit if Coachella’s problem can be worked out in negotiations and not pursued in court.

Coachella officials, professing strong belief in water conservation of the sort that is the keystone of the Imperial-Metropolitan pact, were almost apologetic about bringing the lawsuit. But the district--which covers 600,000 acres, mostly in Riverside County--said that it had no choice if it was to safeguard its rights on the Colorado.

The lawsuit dramatizes the difficulty of achieving water trades and agreements, considered a modern tool of water management, within the framework of traditional water law. Superficially, Coachella seems to have a good case. If the suit were argued to judgment and Coachella won, it would be a major setback to Metropolitan’s attempts to expand its water supplies. If Coachella lost, the case might bring into question fundamental tenets of the complex body of laws, court rulings, compacts and contracts that govern allocation of the Colorado’s waters.

The Metropolitan-Imperial deal provides that Metropolitan will finance water-conservation facilities in the Imperial County agricultural area, like the lining of canals. In return, Metropolitan will receive an estimated 100,000 acres of water saved, about enough to provide for a city of 500,000 people for a year. But the Coachella suit contends that some of the water to be conserved already has been saved and that thus Imperial actually is transferring part of its Colorado allocation to Metropolitan. That would violate a 1931 agreement under which both Imperial and Coachella have higher priorities on Colorado water than Metropolitan has. Any water that Imperial fails to use should go to Coachella and not to Metropolitan, the suit argues.

In fact, the disputes that have been in negotiation are of less cosmic proportions. The sticking point seems to involve the loss of revenue from the electric power that is generated as the Colorado water flows down the All-America Canal to the two big farming districts. The three parties are scheduled to resume discussions this week. They should make every effort to agree to a solution that allows Coachella to drop its lawsuit.