U.S. Judge Allows MWD to Intervene in Case Against Imperial Water District

A federal judge is allowing Southern California’s two biggest water agencies to slug it out in court, delivering what may be the knockout blow to negotiations called by Gov. Gray Davis to make peace and protect the state’s Colorado River supply.

U.S. District Judge Thomas Whelan granted a request by the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, the huge agency supplying 18 million people in Los Angeles and San Diego, to intervene in a case against the Imperial Irrigation District, the nation’s largest irrigation project.

Representatives of Imperial, the MWD and two other water agencies met again Monday in Sacramento to try to salvage a deal aimed at reducing the state’s overdependence on the Colorado River, which is shared by six other Western states.

Exactly where the judge’s order left the closed-door talks in Sacramento was unclear, but Jeff Kightlinger, the MWD’s general counsel, has said the window for negotiations would close if the parties were, in effect, suing each other.

“Once we are in the case it’s going to be extremely difficult to negotiate any longer,” Kightlinger said last month. He was attending Monday’s talks in the capital and could not be immediately reached for comment.

Sue Giller, a spokeswoman for the Imperial Irrigation District, said she could not say what the lawsuit would mean for the negotiations. Lawyers for Imperial’s water board, also in Sacramento, could not be reached for comment.

Talks broke off last week, but the governor’s office urged the MWD to keep talking.

“It would be extremely unfortunate and shortsighted if the Metropolitan Water District walked away from discussions at this juncture,” said Davis spokesman, Byron Tucker.

The differences between the parties may eventually be resolved in court, despite Davis’ high-profile efforts to broker a peace deal. Imperial and the MWD are asking a judge to resolve a tug-of-war over Colorado River water.

When the agencies now meeting in Sacramento missed a Dec. 31 deadline to sign a deal aimed at reducing the state’s overreliance on the Colorado, Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton cut Imperial’s share of river water by 11% this year and earmarked much of it for the Los Angeles area.