Going Against the Flow

The man who may shape the future of urban and agricultural water supplies in Southern California more than any other combatant in the latest water war wants you to know he is really a nice guy.

Don’t believe all that nasty stuff the water barons in San Diego and Imperial Valley are saying about him. Stuff about him being unreasonable, deceptive, an extortionist and an underhanded sneak on a par with the controversial William Mulholland from Owens Valley and “Chinatown” film fame.

“I don’t see myself as a tough guy,” said Tom Levy, general manager and chief engineer of the Coachella Valley Water District. “You have to have a sense of humor if you’re in the water business for the long haul.”

Water officials in San Diego and Imperial Valley are not laughing. They want to cut a deal to transfer billions of gallons from the Imperial Irrigation District to San Diego County, possibly with the aid of the biggest water baron of them all, the Los Angeles-based Metropolitan Water District.

But Levy has served notice that he thinks an Imperial-San Diego deal is illegal without Coachella’s approval and that he’ll go to court unless the behemoths make sure Coachella’s water needs are met. He’s done it before.

At stake are San Diego’s zeal to become “water independent” rather than a captive client of MWD, and the desire by Imperial Valley to sell some of its bountiful supply of water to bail out its chronically depressed economy and undercapitalized farms.

It’s a good bet that neither San Diego nor Imperial Valley will fulfill its heart’s desire, at least not quickly, unless Levy’s demands are met.

“Tom Levy is a hardball negotiator, an extortionist with a smile,” said Francesca Krauel, a San Diego County Water Authority board member. “He’s very smart, and he knows exactly what he wants. He never backs down.”

“Tom’s a go-for-the-jugular, cutthroat kind of guy,” said John Lockwood, former general manager of the San Diego authority. “He’s out to get everything he can for his district, whether he’s entitled to it or not.”

*

There is a considerable body of legal opinion that Levy’s position has sufficient merit to tie the deal up for years in the courts if not scuttle it altogether.

“Tom is definitely in the catbird’s seat,” said Steven Erie, professor of political science at UC San Diego and an expert on Southern California’s infrastructure disputes. “The only question is how big a bite he gets.”

When MWD and the Imperial Irrigation District signed a water transfer in the early 1990s, Levy sued on the same principle he is now espousing. MWD and the Imperial district settled out of court, giving Coachella an additional 50,000 acre-feet of water a year.

This time Levy would like 170,000 acre-feet, and Imperial Irrigation District officials appear in a mood to fight their smallish northern neighbor.

The Coachella district already receives 330,000 acre-feet from the Colorado River, and another 170,000 would push it to 500,000, a figure Levy has made into a kind of mantra. An acre-foot is enough water for two families for a year.

At a meeting of the San Diego authority this month, Imperial Irrigation District general manager Michael Clinton lashed out at Coachella as having a history of wasting water, demanding “water welfare” and engaging in “bait and switch” negotiations.

Clinton said Coachella, with Levy at the helm, is engaging in “Mulholland-like tactics” by sending consultants into the Imperial Valley to see if farmers are wasting water that could be used in Coachella.

Clinton’s incendiary comments included a dismissive reference to “the antics of Coachella” as “a sideshow to the main event in which San Diego and Imperial are engaged.” Later he mailed copies of his comments to the news media and placed ads in local newspapers.

Levy responded with some of his unique brand of water humor.

He had buttons printed with the words “Coachella Valley Water District” on them, along with a picture of the menacing-looking, cigar-chomping Mulholland, the water boss of Los Angeles from 1886 to 1928. Levy also printed oversized replicas of a five-dollar bill, with his picture instead of Abraham Lincoln’s and the mottoes “In CVWD We Trust” and “Five Hundred Thousand Acre Feet.”

The buttons and phony five-spots were Levy’s way of saying Coachella is not going away.

“There are people who think of us as a nuisance,” Levy said. “Over time, it seems that people who think that way have regretted it.”

*

By the numbers, the Coachella district is not in the same league as San Diego, the Imperial district and MWD.

Imperial Valley takes more water from the Colorado River in six weeks than Coachella draws all year. San Diego serves 2.6 million people. MWD supplies 60% of the water used by 16 million people in six counties.

The Coachella district serves 160,000 people and 70,000 acres of farmland in the sun-bleached desert in the southeast end of Riverside County and a desolate sliver of Imperial County north of the Salton Sea. As in many rural districts, the bulk of its water (98%) is used for farming.

The district also includes dozens of thirsty golf courses, most of which are fed by ground water. As a result, the district’s ground water supply is rapidly being depleted.

But Coachella’s position of strength in this regional struggle is based not on acreage or its number of golf courses or, most definitely, its political clout.

Coachella’s trump card is the 1931 agreement divvying up California’s share of the Colorado River. Under that agreement, the Palo Verde Irrigation District, based in Blythe, has first call, followed, in order, by the Yuma water project, the Imperial district and Coachella Valley, MWD and San Diego.

In 1934 the agreement was modified so that Coachella Valley, whose spot in the pecking order had been equal to Imperial’s, would take a back seat. Henceforth, Imperial was third in line, Coachella fourth.

The concession was required by the federal government in exchange for an interest-free loan to build the 122-mile Coachella Canal as an offshoot of the All-American Canal, which brings Colorado River water to Imperial County.

The 1934 agreement, in effect, solidified the right of Imperial Valley to get its fill of Colorado River before Coachella gets a drop. If the river dips, Imperial Valley stays lush and Coachella goes dry.

“We had a gun put to our head,” Levy said of the 1934 agreement, “and so our board signed.”

It is common in California water disputes that one side is festering over a historic wrong: Los Angeles, for example, “stealing” Owens Valley water or San Diego being forced to join MWD.

In the Coachella Valley, the sense of injustice over the 1934 agreement making its water needs subservient to those of the Imperial Valley remains undiminished.

“What we want is what we think we’re entitled to,” Levy said. “The premise of Western water law is ‘reasonable and beneficial use.’ You don’t have the right to waste. IID over the years has been wasteful.”

Levy, 56, was a San Fernando Valley aerospace engineer who had grown weary of the boom-and-bust cycles of that industry when he moved to Coachella 25 years ago to take a job as a sanitation engineer for the district.

When he was named general manager 14 years later, one of his first moves was to form a litigation committee with noted water law specialists. The district has engaged in a series of disputes with its neighbors, mostly the Imperial district, over water supplies, electricity and flooding at the Salton Sea caused by Imperial runoff.

*

In the current dispute, Coachella’s legal stance is that under the 1931 agreement--and other federal water laws dating to 1902--the Imperial Irrigation District can use Colorado River water only within its district boundaries and that any water not used by Imperial should be available for Coachella.

Imperial and San Diego officials take the view that Levy’s position is, well, all wet, and that state law encourages water transfers.

Six months ago, when MWD officials were annoyed at the idea of San Diego signing a water agreement with Imperial, an MWD attorney notified Imperial that the agency had grave doubts about whether such an agreement is legal.

At the time, MWD officials were worried about losing San Diego as its best customer. If San Diego buys less water from MWD because it has found another source of water, it could throw the MWD’s ambitious infrastructure plans for its 26 client agencies in Southern California into disarray.

MWD’s attitude has changed of late. A week ago, the agency announced a proposal whereby San Diego could buy water from Imperial Valley and let it flow to San Diego in MWD’s 242-mile aqueduct from the Colorado River.

The proposal was trumpeted by MWD as a win-win-win: Imperial gets money, MWD keeps San Diego as a customer, and San Diego gets more water without having to build its own $3.5-billion aqueduct.

It all makes no difference to Levy. He said his district is ready to fight in the courts well into the next century, regardless of what position the MWD takes.

He has warned water users in the Coachella Valley to expect the lawsuit to be prolonged and cost millions in legal fees.

“The only question is whether IID and San Diego want to settle with us this century before a lawsuit or next century after a lawsuit,” Levy said.

And he added with a smile, “I’m not bluffing.”