Inland Water Sale Rejected; Coastal Cutback Threatened

The Imperial Irrigation District on Monday defiantly refused to approve a large-scale water sale to San Diego County, despite blunt warnings from the federal government that such a move will mean a severe cutback to coastal Southern California.

Governing board members said they bitterly resent the escalating threats by state and federal officials for the Imperial Valley to either sell part of its water or face dire consequences, including having the board disbanded, state projects for Imperial Valley rejected, and the valley’s own water supply reduced.

“If you push me around, I’ll push back,” said board President Stella Mendoza. “We’ll see them in court. I’m willing to pay for our defense.... Without water, the Imperial Valley is nothing.”

The Bush administration has vowed to immediately suspend rules allowing coastal Southern California to receive surplus water from the Colorado River unless the Imperial board approved the San Diego transfer by Dec. 31. The deal is key to satisfying the administration’s demand that California reduce its overall use of the river.

Other Western states, particularly Arizona and Nevada, are eager for California to use less Colorado River water so that they can begin to receive their full entitlements.

After voting down the proposed 75-year deal to San Diego 3 to 2, the Imperial board voted to have their lawyers draft a potential deal of 3 to 5 years in hopes that will keep the federal government from following through on its threats.

Late Monday, Assistant Interior Secretary Bennett Raley rejected the idea of a 3- to 5-year deal, and said it is now a near certainty that Southern California will suffer a reduction in water.

The Imperial board also voted to begin a legal defense fund. In anticipation of the vote, the board had already voted to hire the firm of Ken Khachigian, a Southern California lawyer, water expert, and Republican political consultant.

Board member Bruce Kuhn, who joined Mendoza and Andy Horne in opposition to the deal, said he expects “the state politicians will be at our throats and the feds will be at our throats.”

The proposal had split the Imperial Valley: the Board of Supervisors opposed the deal, the United Farm Workers supported it, and the Imperial Valley Farm Bureau was unable to reach a consensus, with some farmers opposing the sale of water and others favoring it.

Even if the Department of Interior shuts off surplus water for California, officials at the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California have said they have enough water in storage to offset the loss for at least two years and long-term projects are in the works that could replace the surplus water.

It is also unclear whether the suspension of the surplus rules would mean an immediate reduction or one that would be phased in over several months.

Phillip J. Pace, chairman of the Metropolitan Water District governing board, issued a statement regretting the Imperial decision and saying that the mega-agency still believes that the deal “offers California the best opportunity to follow through on its commitment to ultimately reduce its dependence on Colorado River water.”

Under the 75-year pact, the Imperial district, the nation’s largest agricultural irrigation district, would have sold up to 200,000 acre-feet of water a year to San Diego, enough to serve 1.6 million people for a year. The price would have brought up to $2 billion to the district during the life of the contract. Imperial uses more than 3 million acre-feet a year to irrigate 500,000 acres of farmland.

But board members and some farmers and business leaders complained that the price offered by San Diego was too low. They also feared that the agreement would have left the district liable for hundreds of millions of dollars in projects to repair the Salton Sea, which could be harmed by a reduction in agricultural runoff from the Imperial Valley. Federal law requires partners in a water deal to pay for environmental damage resulting from that deal.

Raley, the Interior official, faxed a letter Monday morning to the four agencies -- the Imperial district, San Diego County Water Authority, Metropolitan Water District of Southern California and Coachella Valley Water District -- urging that the lingering dispute over the sea not be allowed to kill the deal.

California, Raley wrote, must avoid the fate noted by the narrator of the novel, “The Great Gatsby”: “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”

The four agencies, as well as the state and federal governments, have yet to decide who will pay the tab for any damage done to the Salton Sea, which straddles Riverside and Imperial counties and survives on agricultural runoff. The Imperial board wants a promise by the other parties capping the amount the district will have to pay.

Environmentalists are already suing the federal government for allegedly reneging on its obligation to help the birds and fish survive. The inland sea, although smelly and discolored, is teeming with fish and serves as a stopover for millions of migratory birds.

Monday’s vote, closely watched by water officials throughout the West, came after seven years of negotiations that included two administrations in Sacramento and two in Washington, plus a host of state legislators.

Last week, Raley said that he would immediately revoke rules allowing coastal California to get surplus water if the deal was not signed by Dec. 31, a deadline set two years ago by the seven states that get water from the Colorado River.

At stake is 600,000 to 800,000 acre-feet of water a year that Metropolitan distributes to local water agencies in six Southern California counties -- Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego and Ventura.

For the San Diego district, the water deal was born of a 50-year civic desire to have a measure of independence from the Los Angeles-based Metropolitan district. Forced by the federal government to join the Metropolitan during World War II, San Diego has grown into Metropolitan’s largest and unhappiest customer.

At the root of San Diego’s discontent is a formula that could allow the Metropolitan district to shift nearly half of San Diego’s water to Los Angeles during a drought.

While Metropolitan officials and board members have said they would never invoke the formula, they have resisted changing it and successfully fought a lawsuit filed by San Diego to force a change.

To ensure its own supply of water, San Diego officials began negotiating seven years ago with the Imperial district. In the search for more water to serve California, virtually all paths lead to the Imperial Valley, where farmers enjoy the cheapest, most plentiful water supply of any region in the state.

There, fear runs deep that politically powerful forces from outside the Imperial Valley will someday try to steal the valley’s water.

A century ago, farmers guarded their water with shotguns. Now they employ lawyers. When the government attempted to restrict the use of water from federal reclamation projects to farms of 160 acres or less, the Imperial Irrigation District fought to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled in its favor.

“Our water rights have been well earned by the hard work of the pioneers here,” Farm Bureau President Michael Cox told the board. “I think they deserve to be protected.”