Key Official Backs Deal on Surplus Water

A complex deal that would restore Southern California’s right to use surplus Colorado River water received preliminary approval Friday from a key federal official.

Bennett Raley, an assistant secretary at the U.S. Department of the Interior, told the four agencies trying to hammer out the agreement that they were on the right track but still needed to find a way to save the Salton Sea.

The deal would permit Imperial Valley farmers to sell some of their irrigation water to urban users in San Diego County.

That’s seen as a way for California to reduce the overall amount of water it diverts from the Colorado each year.

It would also allow the Los Angeles-based Metropolitan Water District to continue using surplus water from the Colorado until 2016.

Secretary of Interior Gale Norton took away the surplus on Jan. 1 -- enough water for more than 600,000 families for one year -- because she was unhappy with how the deal was structured.

One persistent problem has been preserving the Salton Sea, the giant desert lake sustained by runoff water from Imperial Valley farms that provides habitat for millions of birds.

The worry is that if the farmers sell some of their water, there will be less water flowing to the sea and as a result, it will become too salty for wildlife to tolerate.

In the eyes of federal law, using water from the Colorado to keep the sea alive is seen as a waste.

So on Friday, Raley proposed a water swap that would ensure that the Salton Sea keeps getting farm runoff, but on paper would make the water appear as if it’s coming from elsewhere.

“It’s another step in a very long process,” said Adan Ortega, an MWD vice president, who added that the deal still had other hurdles to overcome.

Most notably, the state Legislature still must vote on whether to spend $200 million of state bond money to fund the deal.