Water for the West

Press, 4 February 1989, Page 20

Water for the West

From the San Francisco correspondent of ‘The Economist.’

Two-thirds of California, all that lies south of San Francisco Bay, is by nature, desert. It has been transformed into farms and cities by importing water, some from the rain-rich northern part of the state and some from the Colorado River through the Hoover Dam. Farmers have always had first claim on the water supply, but the growth of cities and greater sensitivity to the environment are slowly changing the state’s water priorities. California recently saw its first transfer of water rights from an agricultural district to an urban water system. The Imperial Valley Irrigation District, • which borders on Mexico, draws 2.6 million acrefeet of water each year from the Colorado River for its 800 farms. (An acre-foot is the water required to cover an acre to a depth of one foot). But much is lost through seepage because its canals are not cement-lined. Last autumn the California Water Resources Control Board ordered Imperial to stop such waste. Lacking money for construction, the Imperial Valley water system turned to the everthirsty Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which provides water for the Los Angeles area. Metropolitan has agreed to pay all costs for the reconstruction, roughly $ll5 million (SNZIBO million), and another $3 million annually for operation, in exchange for 100,000 acre-feet of water annually for 35 years. The water to be transferred to Metropolitan is assumed to be what is now seeping away, so the farmers lose nothing. Metropolitan, meanwhile, will get enough new water to meet the needs of 400,000 people. It desperately needs the water because it soon will lose half its supply from the Colorado River as a result of a legal dispute settled in favour of the state of Arizona. It is increasingly common for farmers to sell cities their water.

In Arizona some cities have bought farm land just to acquire the attached water rights. Often these rights were obtained from the Federal Government for free, or for a small fraction of the cost of the construction projects (like the Hoover Dam) that made them possible. Now they sell for a pretty penny. Meanwhile, California’s big water users are also struggling with environmentalists. Fortyyear contracts between the federally built and subsidised Central Valley Project in California and local irrigation districts controlled by farmers are coming up for renewal. The Reagan administration’s Interior Department wanted to renew the contracts with no changes (except slightly higher water fees). But an alliance led by the National Resources Defence Council is demanding en-

vironmental-impact studies before new contracts are signed. Another dispute concerns the transfer of state water from north to south. In December environmentalists’ alarms about the decline of fish in the delta channels that flow into San Francisco Bay persuaded the State Water Resources Council to authorise an annual release of 1.5 million acre-feet of water into the delta to rescue the salmon and bass. The council also froze exports of water from the delta to southern California at levels prevailing in 1985. Farmers and southern cities were united, for once, in their outrage. Conservationists complained that the council’s order was too weak. Deserted on all sides, the board withdrew its order and postponed a decision until 1992. (Copyright — The Economist)