Allocation of State’s Water

We would like to correct an impression that the reader may gain from your editorial “Wilson--and Others--Must Zero In on the 80% Solution” (March 11).

Your editorial states that agriculture used more than 80% of (the state’s) water. This makes agriculture, which actually uses more than 80% of the state’s developed water, look like indeed a disproportionate consumer of water. The state, in an average year, receives 200 million acre-feet of precipitation. Of that, most returns to the air as evaporation. About 71 million acre-feet becomes stream flow. Of the stream flow, less than one-half is developed to become available for irrigation and other purposes. The rest of the stream flow runs off to the ocean, mostly on the north coast between Oregon and San Francisco.

In order to appreciate what actually happens, one must realize that people eat a lot more water than they drink or flush or raise lawns and flowers with. It simply takes a lot of water to grow food for a person for a year. Our best present information is about 5 acre-feet, or about 1.6 million gallons, is required. We are promoting a study which will further refine that figure.

One actual error was also contained in the editorial. It said the Central Valley Project distributes more than 7 million gallons of water, mostly to farms. Well, that isn’t an error, but an understatement. CVP delivers that much water almost in an average day. The CVP sells about 7 million acre-feet in an average year. One acre-foot equals over 326,000 gallons.

WILLIAM I. DuBOIS, California Farm Bureau Federation, Sacramento