Agencies’ Dispute Roils Southland Waters

Begin with the adage about one man seeing the glass as half-full and another seeing it half-empty.

That’s a start--but only a start--toward understanding how San Diego County and the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California can survey the same set of water facts and arrive at diametrically opposite conclusions.

The county and the mighty MWD disagree on most of the fundamentals that have undergirded Southern California water policy for half a century, including who has benefited, who has been shortchanged and what the future should look like.

But the most striking difference between the warring agencies--and the one that has proved a sticking point in San Diego’s tentative agreement to buy water from the water-rich Imperial Valley--is over something that water wonks call “dedicated capacity.”

As part of a historic deal, San Diego sees that provision as a rose for all to admire. The MWD sees a clump of offal plopped on its doorstep.

If the two combatants cannot reach agreement--negotiations are to resume next week--the dispute will wind up in the lap of the state Legislature, where the outcome is uncertain.

In short, the San Diego County Water Authority wants a reserved spot (the “dedicated capacity”) for its Imperial Valley water in the Colorado River Aqueduct, the 242-mile engineering marvel that is the backbone of the MWD system that brings water from the Colorado River to 16 million residents in six Southern California counties.

If you are a collector of historical ironies, this one is a dilly.

The aqueduct was built in the 1930s as a result of the money, political muscle and boosterish zeal provided by Los Angeles and its then-smallish suburbs. San Diego declined to join its Southern California neighbors in forming the MWD and thus remained pinch-penny and aloof from the travails of the aqueduct project.

But San Diego was forced by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to end its holdout during World War II. And now, as the century closes, it is poised to become the only one of the MWD’s 27 member agencies to have its own reserved space in the aqueduct.

That sputtering sound you hear is anger from powerful forces at Los Angeles City Hall, where the feeling has long been that the aqueduct belongs to Los Angeles.

But the objection from MWD officials, and from members of its board--who represent Los Angeles and suburban water agencies--is not born simply from proprietary pique. Beyond that, they offer a downbeat analysis of what could happen elsewhere if San Diego is provided this dedicated capacity in the aqueduct.

The fear among MWD loyalists is that water that otherwise would be used throughout Southern California will be ousted from the aqueduct to make room for water designated solely for San Diego.

Other MWD customers would then have to find other sources of water--most probably from the State Water Project, which brings water from Northern California.

But that water is 50% more expensive than Colorado River supplies and has an iffiness to it: The amount available each year can fluctuate greatly, in part because of environmental concerns. Increased demand by Southern California for water from Northern California could also raise hackles among environmentalists.

In the 1991 drought--the most severe in years in Southern California--there was water aplenty from the Colorado River, but the amount available from the State Water Project dropped drastically.

Under the MWD analysis, dedicated capacity in the aqueduct for San Diego could mean higher water prices for the rest of Southern California. Or, under a worst-case scenario, water shortages, if sufficient water is not available from the State Water Project or through other means, such as conservation and reclamation.

The logic of this argument is that the Imperial Valley deal might, indeed, ensure a more reliable water supply for San Diego--but at the cost of making the water supply more unreliable for other MWD agencies. This argument resonates strongly in Los Angeles, which is already facing cutbacks in its Mono Lake and Owens Valley supplies and may soon be looking to buy more water from the MWD.

“I do not understand this fixation San Diego has with moving their water through the aqueduct regardless of what it does to the rest of us,” said Bill Luddy, who was appointed to the MWD board by Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan.

“There will not be dedicated capacity, that’s definitely a line in the sand,” said Glen Peterson, who represents the Las Virgenes Water District (which serves the Agoura Hills-Calabasas-Hidden Hills-Westlake Village area) on the board and is one of the MWD negotiators with San Diego.

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To Luddy, Peterson and others at the MWD, the specter of dedicated capacity in the aqueduct for San Diego represents nothing less than a threat to the economy, lifestyle and growth of Southern California.

The MWD hopes that will be the rallying cry to stir Los Angeles-area representatives in the Legislature if the negotiations between San Diego and the MWD fail. To date, the Los Angeles delegation has not shown an abiding interest in the details of the San Diego-Imperial Valley water transfer--leaving that to legislators whose loyalties are with San Diego.

The legislators most heavily involved in the proposed deal represent portions of San Diego County: state Sens. Steve Peace (D-El Cajon) and David Kelley (R-Idyllwild).

Their views are at one with those held by the San Diego County Water Authority. Kelley sponsored a bill--eagerly signed in October by Gov. Pete Wilson, a former San Diego mayor--authorizing the Legislature to break the deadlock if the MWD and San Diego are unable to agree on use of the aqueduct.

Even while both sides return to the bargaining table, lobbying continues in Sacramento in anticipation of the issue being sent to the Legislature. “There is nonstop advocacy on both sides,” said one water industry insider.

Not surprisingly, San Diego water officials see the dedicated capacity issue wholly differently.

Bereft of ground water, San Diego County is 90% dependent on the MWD. But because the county was not an original MWD member, it could face a 50% cut in times of shortage. Hence the decades-old drive for “water independence.”

San Diego rejects as unacceptable an MWD proposal that in years when the aqueduct is already full, San Diego would store its Imperial Valley water (taken from Imperial Valley’s behemoth share of the Colorado River) in aquifers in Arizona, the Coachella Valley or the Cadiz and Fenner valleys of San Bernardino County. Under that plan, the water would be withdrawn during “dry” years when there is space available in the aqueduct.

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As San Diego sees it, the water agreement with the Imperial Irrigation District is of such value to all of Southern California that other MWD agencies should be willing to pay a small price for it--granting San Diego that dedicated capacity in the aqueduct.

In an aqueduct with room to move 1.2 million acre-feet of water annually, San Diego would like space for approximately 200,000 acre-feet, enough water for 1.6 million people.

San Diego officials insist that without the San Diego-Imperial Valley deal, federal officials are not likely to allow California to continue to draw more than its entitlement of Colorado River water. That’s because those officials like the prospect of taking water conserved by agricultural agencies--through water-efficient farming--and selling it to urban districts.

At present, California takes about 800,000 acre-feet more than its assured allocation of the Colorado as codified in a collection of laws, treaties and contracts known as the Law of the River. The 800,000 acre-feet come from the unused allocations of other states and from water declared surplus by the Bureau of Reclamation.

But U.S. Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt has declared that California must start conserving water or face cutbacks from the Colorado River. He has lauded the concept of the San Diego-Imperial Valley deal with its farms-to-cities transfer of water.

And, most significantly, he has postponed the adoption of rules that would determine when there is “surplus” water available for California until the San Diego-Imperial Valley deal is finalized.

“If there are no water transfers, there will be no surplus water for California and then all of California loses,” said San Diego water board member Mark Watton, arguing that dedicated capacity for San Diego is only just. “Everybody but MWD understands that there is no such thing as free water anymore.”

Bob Campbell, an official of the San Diego water authority, said the MWD counterproposal--the one calling for storing in years when the aqueduct is full--is unacceptable because San Diego would end up paying three times for its water: paying the Imperial Valley for the water, paying to store it and then paying the MWD to buy an equal amount of water to take the place of the supplies it has to store.

If the MWD sees Southern California’s water future as imperiled by the San Diego-Imperial Valley agreement, San Diego sees the same regional future as imperiled without it.

“Without a transfer, you’re gambling on surpluses being available,” Campbell said. “That’s a dangerous gamble.”

All sides in the transfer dispute were eagerly awaiting Babbitt’s speech in Las Vegas last week to the Colorado River Water Users Assn., made up of officials from seven states that depend on the 1,400-mile waterway.

Babbitt scolded the Imperial Valley for its wasteful ways and praised the idea of water transfers. But he pointedly steered clear of taking sides in the issue of how much San Diego should pay to use the aqueduct and whether it deserves dedicated capacity.

“That’s a discussion to take place in Sacramento, San Diego and Los Angeles,” Babbitt told reporters.

Since then, water officials throughout the state have analyzed and reanalyzed the text of Babbitt’s speech like Shakespearean scholars debating just what the ghost meant by appearing to Hamlet that foggy night.

Part of him was goading California--the biggest and most profligate user of the Colorado River--to clean up its act. And part was keeping his agency--and the Democratic Party--from becoming ensnared in a nasty internecine fight in the nation’s largest state.

“You have to remember that Babbitt is a water lawyer,” said one water watcher. “But he’s also a politician.”