The Secret War : HEARTS of the CITY / Exploring attitudes and issues behind the news

Some wars end. Others merely go underground, festering for years until the old passions rebuild to the breaking point. Then the shooting starts again.

We might be talking about Bosnia here, but no. We are talking about the eternal war in California over fresh, clean water. Water to drink, water for our ferns and swimming pools. Water that we must get from somewhere else because we don’t have enough of our own.

Ever since the end of the statewide drought in the early ‘90s, we have heard little of the water war. It seemed to have faded away on the altar of full reservoirs and low-flush toilets. In fact, the war simply hibernated. Now it’s back, driven by a shift in the old rules. The water chiefs have crawled out of their caves, full of vigor and venom, ready to carve up anybody who stands in their way.

This time the stakes are enormous, as always, and every big water agency in Southern California has gotten involved. San Diego has the knives out for Los Angeles and the huge Metropolitan Water District. The Met is courting allies in Arizona, of all places. And everyone is trying to pluck the rich booty being held by the farmers along the Colorado River.

Yet there’s something peculiar about this war. It’s invisible. The water chiefs--the managers of the agencies--have decided that the public should not be a witness to this intense drama. So, since early January, they have conducted their meetings in secret.

That’s right. In secret. These public agencies, addressing questions with huge repercussions, have barred the public from the debate. It seems to be a trend. Only last month the Metropolitan Transportation Authority fired its chief and altered the direction of rapid transit in Los Angeles behind closed doors.

With the water agencies, the secrecy policy has hit new heights. They have barred not only the public from their meetings but also representatives of the state attorney general’s office.

All this began at the first powwow of the so-called Six Agency Committee on Jan. 4. Gathering at the Ontario Hilton, the chiefs called the meeting to try and settle their difference and avoid an all-out litigation war. In addition to the aforementioned Met and San Diego, the six agencies include the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and three farm agencies along the Colorado River.

Joining this crowd were representatives from a couple of Indian tribes along the river, an environmental attorney and a deputy state attorney general. Then the chiefs voted to shut the door, and these people suddenly had no meeting to attend. They left.

What has happened since? How has the water pie been carved up? We don’t know.

Clearly, the agencies are wise in trying to parley their differences. The state’s entitlement to Colorado River water now sits at 4.4 million acre-feet and represents the largest single supply for Southern California. Litigation could tie up this water and create animosities for decades to come.

Further, we should all appreciate the power of the shift that has produced the saber rattling and resulting parley. The West has entered a new age of water, the age of water marketing. Holders of ancient water “rights” along the Colorado and elsewhere can now sell those rights to the highest bidder. The old, government-imposed allotments of Colorado River water will crumble in the face of water marketing.

Many millions, even billions of dollars will change hands. In an all-out war between the agencies, those with the money and the moxie will overwhelm those without. Better to negotiate.

But why the secrecy? Technically, the committee’s lawyers say they have the right to hold closed sessions because the Brown Act allows agencies to exclude the public from discussions regarding “real property” and water qualifies as real property.

If you, like me, have always regarded real property as land, this interpretation may come as some surprise. But let’s not argue technicalities. According to Tom Levy, the general manager of the Coachella Water District, the public was barred because the committee did not want to reveal its decisions to the rival states of Arizona and Nevada.

Those states also have their eyes on the Colorado River and would dearly love to know California’s posture, Levy says. “If you are selling a house, do you invite the buyer to sit at the table where you and your wife are discussing your sales strategy?” he asks.

No, indeed. But this is far larger than a house sale. And who are the buyers and sellers in this case anyway? The sellers may be limited to the farmers along the river, but the buyers are all the rest of us.

Let me repeat: all the rest of us. It’s our money that will buy the water, our futures that rest on the outcome.

And we deserve a seat at the table, especially when the large issues of equity and environmental consequences are being debated. One example: San Diego claims that a proposal by the Met would produce annual fluctuations of 100 feet in the level of Lake Mead, the largest reservoir on the Colorado.

Is this true? If so, is it acceptable? What effect would such fluctuations have on the the quality of Lake Mead?

Or another example: the wealthy investors Sid and Lee Bass of Ft. Worth have purchased large chunks of farmland along the Colorado and are negotiating to sell the land’s water rights for a nifty profit.

Should we be a party to this kind of deal? Do we want to “de-water” the Imperial Valley and other stretches along the river, much as Los Angeles once de-watered the Owens Valley?

We don’t know the answer to these questions because they have been raised in a public forum. And as long as those closed sessions continue, we won’t know. That is the price of secrecy.