U.S. Water for State Farmers Is Cut by 75%

In another indication of the severity of California’s worsening drought, the federal government Thursday stripped farmers in the fertile Central Valley of three-fourths of their water allocations and also sharply curbed deliveries to two urban centers in Northern California.

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation’s announcement that it will reduce water deliveries for agriculture by 75% set off fearful speculation among farmers that crop prices will rise, workers will go idle and acres of land will fall out of production.

“We’ll see 350,000 acres or so of land not farmed,” said Stephen Hall, executive director of the California Farm Water Coalition. The approximately 23,000 farms that get water from the federal Central Valley Project will be affected, Hall said.

“For those acres in western Fresno and western Merced counties, federal water is virtually their only supply. . . . Unemployment will be very high. Whenever you have a disruption like this, the effects are felt immediately and heavily.”

Citing drastically low levels in reservoirs depleted by five dry years, the federal bureau said it could deliver only one-quarter of what the Central Valley Project supplies during a normal wet year to growers in the Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys.

Municipal users in populous Santa Clara and Contra Costa counties will receive only 25% to 50% of their federal water allocations.

“All systems are near zero,” said Don Paff, operations chief for the bureau’s Central Valley Project. “The bank account is near dry.”

California Farm Bureau Federation spokesman Clark Biggs said the federal cutback, which will siphon off 15% of the water available to farms statewide, “is not anything surprising, but it’s obviously going to stress agriculture, particularly on the west side of the San Joaquin and Sacramento valleys.”

Although Bureau of Reclamation officials noted that the reductions are similar to those imposed during the 1977 drought--the worst in recent California history--spokesman John Budd said, “the situation is worse now from everybody’s standpoint.”

Neither urban nor agricultural users depend exclusively on water from the Central Valley Project. On the average, the project supplies farmers with about 20% of their water.

The federal reduction, effective March 1, follows state action last week that cut off all deliveries to farmers who irrigate with water from the State Water Project. While the state’s announcement dealt a severe blow to Kern County farmers, the federal action widens the effects of the drought.

Jason Peltier, manager of the Central Valley Project Water Assn., which represents both farm and urban users, noted that because of the prolonged dry period California farmers last year took about 450,000 acres of land out of production.

Peltier predicted that the combination of federal and state reductions may compound last year’s loss of land significantly. “One million acres . . . will not be farmed this summer as a result of this (combined federal) cutback and the State Water Project cutback,” he said.

In the face of such consequences, state Water Resources Director David N. Kennedy, who is heading Gov. Pete Wilson’s drought task force, said he will recommend today that the governor take “appropriate response, recognizing that we have a very serious shortage on our hands.”

Kennedy did not outline the specific steps he will urge the governor to take, but Wilson has said he wants to avoid such “martial law” actions as the ordering mandatory statewide rationing.

Other options for Wilson include ordering the build-up of a surplus water supply for emergencies, developing new rules to allow the transfer of water from one user to another, seeking federal disaster funds for agriculture and requiring urban areas to reduce consumption.

In Santa Clara and Contra Costa counties, cities were expected to step up conservation measures in an effort to deal with the federal cutback.

The Central Valley Project, the largest water supply operation in California, contracts with local districts to provide water to some 3 million households in the two counties.

For farmers, the reduction of water supplies will probably mean digging deeper wells and tapping already strained local reservoirs to try to sustain orchards and vineyards.

Farmers in the Westlands Water District, which serves 615 farms that average about 800 acres in size, will be among the hardest hit by Thursday’s announcement. District spokesman Don Upton estimated that the cut in federal water will shave about 30% from gross farm revenues.

Around nearby Los Banos, more than half of the region’s 56,000 farming acres will go unplanted because of the federal water cut, he said.

Mike Henry, spokesman for the California Farm Bureau Federation, said farmers have told him that because of the water shortage, “they are not planting sugar beets, beans, tomatoes, rice. The list just goes on.”

Federation officials seized on the occasion to urge that historic disputes between Northern and Southern California and between rural and city dwellers be put aside and new water development projects be started. “It is time to take action,” said federation President Bob L. Vice.

“We’re still bemoaning the fact that we haven’t authorized any water projects in California in the past 20 years, while the population has continued to skyrocket,” spokesman Biggs said. “We need to eliminate north-south, rural-urban differences and get something done.”

In Washington, meanwhile, the National Wildlife Federation accused the Bureau of Reclamation of ignoring congressional orders to long ago enforce effective conservation.

In a report timed for the announcement of reduced federal water deliveries, the organization said the bureau has been unnecessarily slow in developing conservation regulations and reluctant to require irrigators to change long-established practices.

“In sum,” the report said, “ . . . it should not be surprising that districts tend to drag their feet on water conservation and get away with it.”

A one-day congressional hearing on conservation chaired by Rep. George Miller (D-Martinez) is scheduled for Tuesday before the House Interior and Insular Affairs Committee’s panel on oversight and investigations.

Scheduled to testify are Dennis Underwood, chief of the Bureau of Reclamation, John Turner, director of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, Douglas Wheeler of the California Resources Agency, and Kennedy, director of the state Department of Water Resources.

In a related development, Reps. Barbara Boxer (D-Greenbrae), and Gary Condit (D-Ceres), said Thursday they plan to introduce a bill that would grant a tax break to a farmer or rancher who buys and installs efficient water conservation system.

The bill, which has been sent to Miller’s committee to be considered during drought hearings, would provide a 90% tax credit for those in water-short areas who install systems approved by the U.S. Soil Conservation Service.

Ingram reported from Sacramento and La Ganga reported from Los Angeles. Times staff writer Rudy Abramson in Washington also contributed to this report.

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