MWD Buys Land Near Blythe for $43 Million

The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California is buying more than 16,000 acres near Blythe to help provide water for coastal areas by reducing the amount of water used to grow crops in the desert, officials said Tuesday.

They stressed that the $42.5-million purchase is not like the infamous Owens Valley purchases in the early part of last century, when Los Angeles officials bought farmland in the eastern Sierra and let the area go dry so its water could be shipped west for the growing metropolis.

MWD officials are promising that, at most, only 29% of the eastern Riverside County acreage will be taken out of cultivation. And officials from the Palo Verde Irrigation District will advise the MWD on how to manage the acreage.

“This puts to rest the ‘Chinatown’ approach to California water management,” said MWD official Adan Ortega, a reference to the 1974 movie starring Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway that portrayed Los Angeles water officials as corrupt and deceitful in their treatment of Owens Valley farmers.

The sale announced Tuesday involves land owned by Sempra Energy, corporate parent of San Diego Gas & Electric Co.

The energy company has owned the property for decades and had hoped in the 1970s to build a nuclear power plant there. Sempra received four bids for the property, officials said.

Of the sale property, 6,640 acres are undeveloped desert land and 9,704 acres are leased to farmers under multiyear contracts. Those contracts will remain in effect.

MWD is offering to pay Palo Verde Valley farmers to let up to 29% of their land lie fallow so that the water can be used by the mega-agency, which provides water to six counties.

Most water deals between cities and farming regions--including the largest such deal of all, between San Diego and the Imperial Irrigation District--have avoided what is called fallowing, relying instead on farmers finding a way to use less water per acre.

Fallowing is a controversial practice because when farmers reduce the amount of acreage under cultivation, numerous businesses that provide services to farmers can suffer economically.

Fallowing is particularly despised in the Imperial Valley, where some farm families moved in the 1920s and 1930s when farming declined drastically in the Owens Valley. One farmer has even written a series of poems warning of how fallowing could kill the valley’s economy.

MWD officials have touted the agreement with the Palo Verde district as a model for future water deals between farming areas and cities, and have insisted that fallowing can be done without injuring the local economy.

Although the Palo Verde governing board on Tuesday tentatively approved the plan, there is no indication how many landowners will agree to fallow their land.

“The monkey is on our back for us to prove we are going to be good neighbors,” said MWD official Dennis Underwood.

By buying the Sempra property, MWD is 10% toward its goal of how much water it hopes to acquire in the Palo Verde Valley. The fallowing plan is part of MWD’s strategy to find new sources of water to offset a planned cutback in the state’s allocation from the Colorado River.

Palo Verde board member Virgil Jones said that local farmers preferred that the property be purchased by the MWD rather than by the state, which might use it as a nature preserve, or a neighboring water agency, which might use the water for its own farmers.

“Farmers are confident with what they know about MWD,” said Jones, quickly adding, “at the present time.”