Currents of Uncertainty Make Vote in Water War Anything but ‘Final’

EL CENTRO -- Even if the Imperial Irrigation District approves a 75-year deal to sell water to San Diego County and save coastal Southern California from a threatened cutback in its water supply, the complex pact could be scuttled through disagreement or exhaustion, officials concede.

A vote by the water district in this conservative farming region is looming as early as this evening, and the Bush administration is talking tough about cutting off the tap from the Colorado River if the water district doesn’t agree to a deal to send water to the coast.

But the administration’s sign-or-else Dec. 31 deadline could prove to be a toothless tiger, and it is highly likely that the Imperial district could delay a decision for months without California losing a drop.

Welcome to the world of Western water policy, where nothing happens quickly, things are often not as they appear, and time, as former Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt was fond of saying, is measured not in months and years but in decades.

At issue is the federal government’s attempt -- first under Babbitt and now Interior Secretary Gale Norton -- to persuade the farmers of Imperial Valley to sell some of their enormous share of the Colorado River to San Diego County.

The prospective sale is also supported by the state government, which sees it as a solution to federal officials’ demand that California reduce its overall use of Colorado River water. Other Western states are pressuring Washington to ween California off surplus water above its legal entitlement.

After marathon negotiations guided by Assemblyman Bob Hertzberg (D-Sherman Oaks), the four agencies involved in the prospective water sale -- the Imperial district, the San Diego County Water Authority, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, and the Coachella Valley Water District -- reached a tentative agreement Oct. 15.

But to get even such a preliminary deal, the parties used a strategy common to water disputes: agreeing to delay deciding key details until sometime in the indefinite future.

Sticky Details

One of those sticky details involves potential damage to the Salton Sea -- the smelly, discolored body of water that straddles Riverside and Imperial counties and depends on agricultural runoff from the Imperial Valley for its continued existence.

If Imperial Valley sells water to San Diego, that means less runoff for the Salton Sea. Less runoff means the sea will shrink, the water will become even saltier, and birds and fish will become increasingly imperiled.

Federal law requires partners in a water deal to pay for any environmental damage resulting from that deal. Officials at the Imperial Irrigation District, however, are worried that their district will get stuck with a bill for “fixing” the sea, which could run into the hundreds of millions of dollars.

Tom Kirk, executive director of the Salton Sea Authority, is disappointed that the tentative agreement reached Oct. 15 does little to address the long-term problems of the Salton Sea. Even the “final” agreement before the irrigation district today proposes, at best, only a temporary solution: For the first 15 years of the 75-year agreement, the Imperial Irrigation District would provide enough water to stabilize the sea.

“When government faces a tough choice, it often postpones a decision or appoints a commission,” Kirk said. “With the Salton Sea, it’s done the former.”

Kirk also said he agrees with the Imperial Valley farmers that they could be “left holding the bag” for the sea’s problems.

But even the temporary solution for the sea has a major snag: state and federal regulations that prohibit diverting Colorado River water directly to the Salton Sea.

Nevada and Arizona officials have already warned of dire consequences (read: litigation) if California tries to save the sea by using water from the river. (Such suits would claim that use of Colorado River water for the Salton Sea is not a “beneficial” use, as defined in arcane state and federal law.)

Assistant Interior Secretary Bennett Raley, meeting Thursday with the Imperial board, suggested that the federal government would not object if river water made its way to the Salton Sea. A suggestion, however, is not a promise, and farmers and board members did not appear to be placated by Raley’s words.

Imperial lawyer David Osias, after Raley left, said the next year will be consumed by negotiations among the four agencies about the Salton Sea and who will pay for its restoration. Without an agreement on that point, the deal will not survive, Osias said.

Along with the Salton Sea, there are still details involving how money paid by San Diego County will be used to offset hardships potentially caused by taking farmland out of production: loss of jobs for farm workers, possible reduction in sales and property taxes to run local governments and schools, and loss of revenue for farm-dependent businesses.

The tentative settlement calls for a three-person governing board to make decisions about disbursements. But history suggests that the Imperial district finds it difficult, if not impossible, to make sure that such money filters down to farm workers and others.

About $13 million from a previous water deal a decade ago sits in a bank account, unused.

If the Salton Sea and “third-party” impact problems are not enough, there is also the matter of voluntarism and widespread opposition to water sales among farmers, many of whom are the descendants of pioneers who turned Imperial Valley from a desert wasteland into a place of agricultural bounty.

Nothing in the would-be agreement forces any individual farmer to reduce his or her water use to sell it to San Diego. If not enough farmers sign up, the deal cannot succeed.

One scenario is that farmers will balk at the price being offered and demand more money. The Oct. 15 agreement sets a base price of $258 per acre-foot for water that costs the farmers $15.50.

But farmers insist that those numbers are misleading and that San Diego officials and editorialists who say the farmers are being offered windfall profits are wrong. They note that from the $258 per acre-foot, the Imperial district will take a slice for overhead, and farmers will need to use much of the rest to pay for water conservation infrastructure.

By one estimate, neither the Imperial district nor any farmer will see a profit from the water deal for two decades. Their resentment over being characterized as greedy is palpable.

Nation Is Watching

“Our families came out here a hundred years ago and busted their humps making this desert bloom,” said Imperial board member Bruce Kuhn. “We know the eyes of the state and national government are upon us, but we’re not going to go bankrupt to send water to the coast.”

Raley said that if Imperial does not approve the agreement, he will immediately suspend the rules that allow California to receive surplus water from the Colorado River. For years the Metropolitan Water District, which serves 17 million people in six counties, has received 600,000 to 800,000 acre-feet of surplus water each year -- enough for upward of 6 million people.

Though the rules would be suspended immediately, reducing the flow of surplus water to California could take months, maybe an entire year, Raley said. And what would happen if the Imperial district, say, approved the agreement in March?

The surplus rules would be reinstated without California having lost a pint of the liquid gold.

Even in the face of opposition and outright animosity in the Imperial Valley, Raley remains confident that a deal is possible. A water lawyer in Colorado before joining President Bush’s administration, he said he is not discouraged by the complexities of water negotiations.

“There’s a reason in the 1931 seven-party agreement [allocating the Colorado River among Western states] that this was not all worked out,” said Raley. “This is hard stuff.”