Babbitt Warns of Water Cutbacks

With Los Angeles already facing the possibility of losing 13% of its water supply from the eastern Sierra Nevada, Southern California was told Thursday by the federal government to cut back substantially on its dependence on another major water source--the Colorado River.

In a speech to officials of the seven states that draw from the Colorado, U.S. Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt warned California that it can no longer count on taking more water from the river than it is legally entitled to--something it has been doing for a number of years.

Babbitt gave the state a year to come up with a conservation plan or face the prospect of immediate cutbacks.

The message for Southern California, which relies on the Colorado for 70% of its water, is that years of squabbling over who is wasting the most water must now give way to a joint planning effort by urban and agricultural users.

If that doesn’t happen, officials say, the next drought could spell shortages, significantly higher water rates and pressure on other sources, such as the Sacramento River-San Francisco Bay Delta, where more water diversions could cause serious environmental harm.

Officials of the Los Angeles-based Metropolitan Water District, the wholesale supplier of Colorado River water to Southern California cities and suburbs, estimated that consumer water rates could go up by 25% to 30% across the region if the agency were forced to go elsewhere to buy water it now depends on from the Colorado. Orange County water districts, especially in the southern communities, buy much of their water from MWD. Five separate agencies in the county bought a combined 292,000 acre feet in the last year.

“A crucial question is how California is preparing itself for times of greater stringency,” Babbitt said to an audience of nearly 1,000 people at Caesars Palace. “It is clear that surplus [Colorado River] water will not be available indefinitely to meet demands beyond the [state’s] 4.4 million acre-foot entitlement.”

For California to expect any surplus water beyond 1997, Babbitt said, the state will have to come up with a blueprint showing how it eventually intends to get by on its legal entitlement.

State water officials were generally supportive. “He presented California with a real challenge but a fair one,” said Jerry Zimmerman, executive director of the Colorado River Board of California.

For years, California has been able to take more than its lawful portion of Colorado water because the other six states dependent on the river did not need their allocated shares. But that situation is changing as the population of the West surges, and other states are pushing Babbitt to put California on a water diet.

In response, Babbitt said Thursday that the federal government is prepared to step in to determine reasonable levels of consumption, if Californians can’t do it themselves, and to clarify “the relative rights” of competing users, such as farmers in the Coachella and Imperial valleys southeast of Palm Springs, who have been warring over rights to the river water.

But Babbitt also offered an incentive to California. Contingent upon the state’s development of a long-term conservation plan, he said, the federal government would establish guidelines that would assure California some continued access to water not yet needed by the other six basin states. Those states are Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, Utah, Wyoming and New Mexico.

State officials had been expecting a stern speech after receiving a letter from the other six states formally protesting California’s ongoing reliance on water it is not entitled to.

Last year, the state exceeded its entitlement by about 18%, or 800,000 acre-feet. All of the state’s Colorado River water is used in Southern California and it is one of the region’s most inexpensive water sources.

The threat of a cutback has special meaning for Los Angeles in the wake of a decision earlier this week that could cost the city 13% of the water it pipes 200 miles from its cheapest source, the Owens River in the eastern Sierra.

On Monday, the Great Basin Unified Air Pollution Control Board voted to compel Los Angeles to give up the water as part of a $70-million project to curb noxious dust storms that rise from the dry expanse of Owens Lake and wreak havoc in nearby High Desert communities. The problem was created more than 50 years ago when Los Angeles sucked the lake dry to pipe the water south.

Officials of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power said the pollution control plan could drive up consumer water rates by 9% by forcing the city to buy more expensive water.

The city already gets some of its water from the Colorado, but the amount can vary dramatically from year to year.

Babbitt pointed a finger at urban and agricultural consumers in Southern California for exceeding their fair share of river water. But he singled out the Imperial Irrigation District, which supplies water to farmers in the Imperial Valley and is, by far, the biggest single consumer of Colorado River water in the state.

“I know that some basin interests have expressed concern about increased water use by the Imperial Irrigation District. . . . We have some real concern about that as well,” Babbitt said.

Not surprisingly, Michael Clinton, general manager of the Imperial Irrigation District, took exception to Babbitt’s comments about the district.

“We strongly object to the characterization that we are not using water responsibly,” Clinton said in an interview. “Our farmers are making a living using irrigation techniques that have improved conservation greatly over the past decade.”

But as Imperial Valley farmers seek to take advantage of rising commodity prices, Clinton acknowledged, they are growing more crops and using more water.

Also contributing to this report was Times staff writer Janet Wilson.