Crucial Time for Water Planning

Decisions during the next few months on the state’s use of Colorado River water may have a dramatic impact on water distribution in Southern California well into the 21st century.

There are two key issues at stake. In the first, Southern California must respond to an order from Washington to develop a plan to live within its legal allocation of 4.4 million acre-feet of Colorado River water a year. Agriculture is the biggest user. The supplier for the state’s most concentrated urban region, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, has rights to 550,000 acre-feet a year but has been drawing up to 1.2 million acre-feet by tapping other states’ unused water from the river.

In the second, the MWD and the San Diego County Water Authority are locked in dispute over San Diego’s attempt to develop a water supply of its own by acquiring a minimum of 200,000 acre-feet from the Imperial Irrigation District.

Historically, the MWD has been a monopoly wholesaler of water to its 27 member agencies, including San Diego, its largest customer. But San Diego was a late joiner of the water colossus, in the 1940s, and would be one of the first to suffer shortages in a severe drought. As a priority customer, Los Angeles would be among the last to be rationed.

Although shortages for residential customers would be unlikely in any case, San Diego County authorities argue that the Imperial deal is critical to economic growth because new business would be reluctant to invest in the area unless the long-term water supply there was certain.

The proposal was argued before the state Senate’s water committee in a lengthy hearing Tuesday. At the end, committee Chairman Jim Costa (D-Fresno) bluntly told the parties to settle the issue themselves or the Legislature would do it for them.

One sticking point is that the only way San Diego can get the water from Imperial to its own pipes is to use the MWD’s Colorado River Aqueduct. Metropolitan is willing--for a price, another point of dispute--but only if there is capacity available. As the MWD sees it, surplus water should keep the canal full for at least another decade. In other words, no room for San Diego water.

Costa cautioned that the MWD is being far too sanguine about the continued availability of the surplus water. Other states fear that California will become dependent on their water, and they are intent on exercising their rights of use now.

This is a competitive new age for water in which market forces are beginning to play a necessary role in supply and distribution and old institutional barriers are beginning to fall. All the players in California must adjust to that reality.