Board Gets Warning on Water Deal

With a deadline just days away, a top Bush administration official warned Thursday that coastal Southern California will suffer a sizable reduction in its water supply next year unless the water-rich farming community here agrees to a deal with arid San Diego County.

Asst. Interior Secretary Bennett Raley said his boss, Interior Secretary Gale Norton, is determined to reduce California’s overuse of the Colorado River so that other Western states can get their full entitlement.

“I’m not here to tell you what to do,” Raley told a meeting of the Imperial Irrigation District. “ ... But doing nothing is not an option. The secretary is going to enforce the law of the river.”

The board of the Imperial Irrigation District is set next week to discuss whether to sign a 75-year water deal with San Diego, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California and the Coachella Valley Water District. The plan would help cut the state’s usage of the river by shifting water now used by farms to urban customers.

Raley’s unusual appearance before the board of the Imperial district may partly dispel any notion that the Bush administration will back down from a Dec. 31 deadline for California to cut its use of the Colorado.

Raley made clear the deadline was unequivocal, leaving vague only the precise date on which California’s river water might be cut back.

The water transfer is highly controversial here in the sprawling farm country north of the Mexican border, particularly among farmers and business leaders who feel that the price they will be paid for the water is too low and that Imperial County’s $1-billion-a-year agricultural industry will be crippled by a requirement that some fields be left unplanted.

The outcome of next week’s expected vote by the district board is very much in doubt. Two board members favor the deal. Two oppose it. The fifth, though undecided, does nothing to hide his disdain for the plan.

Bruce Kuhn, the holder of the apparent tie-breaking vote, said angrily that some San Diego officials are unfairly depicting the water transfer as providing windfall profits to farmers.

More accurately, Kuhn said, the deal amounts to the farm community’s bailout of urban and suburban Southern California, which have been unable to curb growth and foolishly counted on the surplus Colorado River water.

“They look at us and say, ‘Let’s go after those dumb ... farmers,’ ” Kuhn said. “We didn’t cause this problem [California’s water shortage]. We’re willing to do our part, but not at the expense of our economy or our way of life.”

Raley said the Imperial Valley and California have two choices: Consummate the water deal by Dec. 31 or lose up to 800,000 acre-feet of “surplus” water next year, enough to satisfy the needs of about 6 million people.

“We’re having a gun put to our head and we’re being encouraged to hold the gun while the trigger is being pulled,” said Heidi Kuhn, a cousin of Bruce Kuhn, whose own family grows alfalfa and runs a dairy.

In Los Angeles, officials of the Metropolitan Water District, which supplies water to 17 million people in six counties, said that even the cutback threatened by Raley would not lead to immediate shortages.

The district’s increased storage and water deals with other farming districts in the state would offset the cut for about 18 months, officials said.

Ron Gastelum, chief executive officer of MWD, said that even in the longer term, the agency would be able to compensate for the loss of the surplus water by “appropriate investments” in additional conservation, recycling, desalination projects and other water transfers.

Gastelum also rejected Kuhn’s assertion about growth in Southern California. “He’s way off base,” Gastelum said. “We have managed our growth through investments in recycling and conservation and other programs so the amount of water today is the same as in the mid-1970s. All the growth that has occurred is not the reason we’re asking for water” from the Imperial Valley.

Raley also warned that if the Imperial board decides not to sign the deal, it will only postpone the inevitable sale of water to the densely populated coastal region. Raley told the board, in effect, that Imperial’s legal entitlement to the lion’s share of Colorado River water will not withstand the growing needs and political power of the communities that sweep from Los Angeles to San Diego.

“The economic pressures associated with urban growth in the West are extremely strong,” he said.

The Imperial district could undercut its own authority if it won’t sign the deal, the Bush administration’s Western water czar added, predicting that individual Imperial Valley farmers will cut side deals to sell water to San Diego and the giant Metropolitan district.

Signing the water deal, he said, will mean the district “can continue to control its own destiny.”

While many farmers abhor the idea of selling water, others have already written to Raley about individual deals if the Imperial Irrigation District declines to sign. One farmer has hired a Northern California lawyer to inquire about the legal issues of private sales.

Raley’s warning is just the latest attempt to convince the Imperial Irrigation District that it will suffer dire consequences if it does not sign the deal.

During negotiations that led to a preliminary agreement Oct. 15 between the four water agencies, state officials suggested that if the Imperial district balks, the Legislature could assume control of the district and sign the deal on its behalf.

Another strategy would be to declare that the Imperial Valley’s enormous use of Colorado River water does not constitute a legally permissible “beneficial use” and thus should be reduced. Both state and federal regulations say that water rights are valid only if the water is being used beneficially.

The pressure from state and federal officials is beginning to wear on Imperial Valley leaders. Board member Lloyd Allen said he favors the agreement because he feels the Legislature, with heavy representation from Los Angeles and San Diego, has the power to enforce the deal even if Imperial Valley resists.

The Dec. 31 deadline was set two years ago in an agreement between California and the six other states that depend on the Colorado River.

For years California has been receiving annual “surplus” allocations from the river -- water that, in effect, belongs to other states.

The Imperial Irrigation District, which provides water to 140,000 people and 500,000 acres of farmland, receives more than 3 million acre-feet of water a year from the Colorado.

The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California is entitled to 550,000 acre-feet and a portion of river water declared by the Interior Department as surplus. It is that surplus allocation for MWD, which has amounted to 600,000 to 800,000 acre-feet a year, that Raley is threatening to terminate.

Arizona, Nevada and other Western states have pressured the Interior Department to end surplus allocations to California. But after years of negotiations, the six other states agreed in 2000 to give California another 15 years of surplus allocations, as long as it met interim goals for reducing its Colorado River use.

Already impatient with California’s failure to finalize the water transfer, Arizona recently petitioned the Interior Department to begin reducing California’s take in January. Arizona said its neighbor’s surplus allocations should be cut off altogether within a year.

Although Imperial Valley is geographically obscure in southeast California, it is center stage to discussions of water allocations throughout the West because of its behemoth share of the Colorado River.

That huge claim is based on the fact that Imperial Valley farmers staked their claim to the river’s water before almost everyone else, more than a century ago.

“I’ve been thinking about you all intensely,” Raley said, “for the 16 months I’ve been in this job.”