Water User Cooperation

Before pronouncing dead the alliance between California’s urban and agricultural water users, The Times would do well to consider a few of the arenas in which cities and farms are chalking up more successes together than they could separately (“Agriculture Loses Ground in New Era of Water Wars,” Feb. 8).

Urban and agricultural water agencies, facing a proposed new standard for radon in drinking water that would cost California $3.7 billion but do nothing to improve public health, worked in tandem last year to secure federal legislation directing the Environmental Protection Agency to revisit the regulation.

The two sectors also worked together to stave off the worst of a state budget revenue raid last year that would have stripped water agencies of more than $205 million in property tax revenues and increased water rates by an average of 45%. Cities and farms also threw their support behind major ground-water legislation that will allow many water districts to prevent overdraft and contamination in California’s ground-water basins.

In another illustration, the state’s largest urban water wholesaler and a San Joaquin Valley agency have adopted a water storage and exchange program that benefits both farmers and urban Southern Californians. The arrangement between Metropolitan Water District of Southern California and Arvin-Edison Water Storage District adds reliability to both districts’ supplies and enhances ground-water management.

Today, representatives of urban and agricultural water agencies are hammering out differences over water transfer legislation, and working through Gov. Pete Wilson’s Bay Delta Oversight Council to address environmental decline in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta that is forcing water shortages for both urban dwellers and growers.

Working together offers the only real shot at long-term progress on water issues.

STEPHEN HALL

Executive Director

Assn. of California Water Agencies

Sacramento