A Lawn for City Kids Comes First : Water policy: Congress must find the backbone to fight off entrenched agricultural interests and assure urban supplies.

The debate over California water policy can be complex. But if you are confused by terms such as irrigation districts, acre-feet and aqueducts, consider a clearer illustration: There are thousands of first-graders in Southern California who rarely see a green lawn.

The reality behind this symbol is very dangerous. Unless bold, far-reaching steps are soon taken, California will enter the 21st Century controlled by the Byzantine water allocation policies that currently paralyze the state’s ability to adjust to a changing world.

The problem is one of balance. California, with an economy of $760 billion and as many as 800,000 new residents every year, sees 82% of its water used by agriculture--an industry that accounts for less than 3% of the state’s economy. This skewed relationship threatens California’s economy, health and environment, and the federal government is a large part of the problem.

Through its ownership and subsidy of the Central Valley Project (CVP), the system of canals and reservoirs that supplies 20% of California’s water, the federal government perpetuates an archaic system that reserves precious water for agribusiness at the expense of all other interests.

There is a reform effort under way in Congress to turn this dynamic around. The goals are simple: to allow water to be transferred voluntarily from farmers to other state residents, to protect the environment and endangered species in a way that prevents lawyers and courts from determining California’s future, to encourage water conservation and most important, to allow California rather than Washington to decide how to use its own water.

Earlier this spring, genuine CVP reform was blocked in the Senate in favor of a “growers’ bill” that would continue the business-as-usual approach. There is no question that the growers’ bill abandons fisherman for farmers, sacrifices the environment for subsidized crops, overrides California laws and protects a lucky group of water users at the expense of the rest of the state.

What will California look like if the growers’ bill becomes law?

To begin with, Californians can count on the extinction not only of many species of fish and birds, but also of fishermen. The demise of the fishing industry could cause the collapse of several northern California economies and communities. Ports in San Francisco and Oakland, barred from dredging in order to safeguard CVP-damaged fish stocks, will lose significant shipping business and thousands of jobs.

The courts will be forced to manage both the CVP and the State Water Project, as the Delta smelt becomes to California what the spotted owl has become to Oregon and Washington.

Businesses, always in need of clean, reliable water supplies, will flee the state or decide against opening shop in the first place, leery of relying on an unbalanced and inflexible system.

And cities--particularly Los Angeles--will be forced to beg for water from irrigation districts, hoping that powerful agribusinesses will see fit to open the valves. Desperation may bring about expensive, polluting desalination plants, the diversion of wild north coast rivers or even construction of the Peripheral Canal.

Though it has been reluctant to admit it, the Central Valley agriculture community also has much to lose in the absence of timely and creditable reform. Their refusal to share water with the rest of the state would prompt efforts by impatient, growing cities simply to take water away. Further delay in responding to water supply and environmental problems will mean only that as they worsen, the cost of fixing them rises. The growers themselves wil have to bear those costs.

The battle, however, is not over, and such a dreadful scenario can be avoided.

Last month, the House passed a fairly strong CVP reform bill. It’s not a perfect bill and, unfortunately, the best opportunity to improve it was lost when Gov. Pete Wilson ordered CVP growers to break off negotiations with the environmental community. The governor apparently wants Congress just to hand the CVP over to him and skip the reform needed to ensure that California’s cities and environment get treated fairly.

Congress is not about to walk away and leave reform of this taxpayer-funded project up to chance or in the hands of those who have proven themselves more concerned with defending the status quo than solving the project’s many serious problems. A House-Senate conference committee, planned by the end of this month, can produce a bill with changes that would truly be to the benefit of all Californians.

The intricacies and complexity of water policy suggest that it affects only a handful of people. In the future, though, the first-grader who has rarely seen a green lawn could easily be the fisherman who has no fish to catch, the dockworker with no job to go to or the family that pays thousands of dollars a year for its basic household water supplies. Water is California’s future, and CVP reform cannot wait.