Crackdown Planned on Central Valley Water : Agriculture: U.S. seeks to enforce limits and keep big growers from skirting law. Farmers vow to fight back.

Citing a new era of restraint in the flow of federal water, the Clinton Administration is about to crack down on farmers who skirt the law that limits subsidized water to farms 960 acres and smaller--a move that will dramatically alter the distribution of water in California and other Western states.

For years, loopholes in the 960-acre ceiling have guaranteed cheap federal water to some of the biggest farming operations in America. Critics refer to the system as “welfare for the rich.”

Next week, new rules to strictly enforce the ceiling will be formally announced by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. The proposals could be adopted as early as this year.

The greatest impact will be felt on the westside of the San Joaquin Valley, where most of this federally subsidized irrigation water flows. For years, many growers in this area simply divided up their massive holdings into 960-acre trusts in the name of sons, brothers and distant cousins. Under the new enforcement rules, cotton and vegetable growers now paying $18 an acre-foot for water will pay as much as $60 to $90 an acre-foot without the subsidy--an increase of up to 500%.

“We think we’ve found a way to eliminate the abuse,” said Daniel P. Beard, commissioner of the Bureau of Reclamation. “It could affect as many as 80 large operations, most of them in and around Fresno.”

Farmers in the area, who have no shortage of friends in high places, vow that they will not take the rule changes lying down. They plan to appeal to Washington, where a fight on the issue could place conservative politicians--longtime supporters of cheap water for agriculture--in the position of supporting subsidies to big farmers while advocating cuts in programs for the poor.

“These changes are going to ignite a great amount of controversy,” said Jason Peltier, manager of the Central Valley Project Users, which consists of about 80 water districts that sell to farmers. “There will be a huge battle.”

Farmers say the Clinton Administration, responding to pressure from environmentalists, is proceeding on a false premise. These are not the “big, greedy bad guys” portrayed by the reformers, they say, but family farmers whose roots in the land are two and three generations deep.

“The government is going after the mystique of corporate farming,” said Dan Errotabere, a second-generation vegetable and cotton grower based in Five Points. “Our farm is a partnership between my mother and my two brothers and me. If these rules are adopted, it will break us up.”

Beard said he doesn’t dispute that many of the affected operations are family-run. “I’ve never accused them of being corporate farmers, and they’re not,” he said. “But that still doesn’t justify them getting subsidized water on more than 960 acres of land.”

It is a dispute that dates back to the building of the great dams and canals that allowed this heartland to blossom into the richest agricultural producer in the world. Farmers point out that many of the water projects of the 1940s, ‘50s and ‘60s were built for them.

Although this may be true, environmentalists say, the urbanization of California has imposed a new set of dictates. With no more rivers being dammed, cities and farms must find a better way to share a fixed resource, they maintain.

Beard and his powerful former boss, Rep. George Miller (D-Martinez), have long argued that farming on the San Joaquin Valley’s westside is a costly and inefficient proposition. Much of the land, they say, is laden with toxic salts that bubble to the surface and kill migratory birds and other wildlife.

Making farmers pay the true cost of the water, they believe, will retire some of the worst land and free up water for other, more legitimate uses.

The issue was supposed to be resolved with the passage of the 1982 Reclamation Reform Act, which allowed the flow of cheap federal water to farms as large as 960 acres. The previous ceiling was 160 acres.

As many farmers here divided up their 5,000-acre holdings, the Reagan and Bush administrations, critics say, gave a wink and nod to these paper games that flouted the spirit of the reform act.

One large Fresno-based farming operating, Westhaven--owned by J.G. Boswell, the largest cotton grower in the world--was able to keep cheap water flowing to its 25,000 acres by handing over land on paper to its employees, Beard said.

“They divided up on paper, reconstituted and went on farming the way they did in the past,” he said.

Farmers argue that much of their land is second to none and supports diversified crops such as tomatoes, almonds, garlic and melons. The years of drought and declining federal water allotments have turned them into some of the most efficient water users anywhere, they say.

“Beard and Miller need a reality check,” said grower Errotabere. “We’re very good at what we do. This land isn’t inefficient or toxic. It’s a vegetable basin.”

Public hearings on the rule changes will be held in April. Beard said he expects adoption of the reforms by the end of the year.

“More than 138,000 farming operations receive federal water out west and only an extremely small percentage are near or over 960 acres,” Beard said. “If the people in Congress don’t like what we’re doing, they can change the law. But our job is to enforce the law and this is what we ought to do.”