Water Deal Must Be Made

It has come to this: A one-vote majority of an obscure elected body in a remote desert county of 140,000 residents has put the water future of 17 million Southern Californians in jeopardy.

Because its farmers got there first, the Imperial Irrigation District is legally entitled to 71% of California’s share of the Colorado River to irrigate its 400,000 acres of cropland. After years of negotiation, the district this week rejected, 3 to 2, a proposed long-term deal to sell some of its water to San Diego in return for handsome payments to willing farmers. The water sale was part of a complex exchange to avoid an abrupt cutoff of Colorado River sales to the region’s cities, which have been using spare allotments of river water.

The states that have legal rights to that river water are suffering droughts and want it back. Without it, however, Southern California could suffer severe water-use limits and economic damage. The farm transfer, combined with new water conservation by farmers, would keep the water flowing.

There are many reasons the transfer was rejected, but the deal breaker may have been the Owens Valley syndrome. Farmers whose family roots in the rich irrigated soil go back 100 years feared that once the cities got some of their water, they would keep coming back for more. But it’s not Owens Valley, where the city of Los Angeles secretly bought up land for its water rights a century ago and took the water south.

Imperial approached San Diego first, in 1995, because it was under state orders to conserve more water. The idea was that San Diego would pay Imperial to install water-saving facilities in the fields and San Diego would get the saved water, up to 200,000 acre-feet a year, enough to serve half a million average households. In the final package, Imperial would get several billion dollars over 75 years. No farmer could be forced to sell water or fallow land.

The plan might have passed if the farmers ran the irrigation district. In Imperial County, unlike most of the state, the water district directors are chosen by all voters, not just the farmers. Only one of the five is a farmer. Some irate state officials are talking about dismantling the Imperial district. Federal officials speak of arbitrarily reducing Imperial’s take from the Colorado. Those threats are premature and inflammatory.

Federal law says participants in deals like this can be held liable for damage to the environment. Imperial feared getting stuck for hundreds of millions of dollars. Congress and the Interior Department need to limit the water district’s liability as a step toward reviving the deal. And revive it must. Federal, state and local officials have just two weeks to keep Interior from reducing the flow by an amount that serves 1.6 million urban families. That’s a tall order for a problem that has festered for 60 years. Success could begin with farmers who favor the deal making their wishes more loudly known.