Conservation News
Water Wars
By Dougald Scott
Water Wars
By Dougald Scott
THE CALIFORNIA WATER WARS: WATER FLOWING TO FARMS, NOT FISH - Excerpted From: SF Chronicle, 10/23/05. By Glen Martin.
After 50 years of legal infighting, a victor has emerged in California's water wars -- agriculture.
A decade after environmentalists prevailed in getting more fresh water down the north state's rivers and estuaries to improve fisheries and wildlife habitat, farmers are again triumphant. Central Valley irrigation districts are signing federal contracts that assure their farms ample water for the next 25 to 50 years.
In the western San Joaquin Valley, a desert is blooming with cotton and produce, all sustained with water from California's northern rivers. But in the places where this water once flowed -- the delta of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers, the Trinity River in the far north state -- fisheries have declined drastically. That's a direct result, biologists say, of water diversions to the south.
First among the winners of the water wars is the Westlands Water District southwest of Fresno -- the nation's largest irrigation district. This 600,000 acres of arid alkali dirt is one of California's most desolate regions.
Depending on who's doing the counting -- agricultural partnerships are difficult to untangle -- Westlands has between 200 and 2,500 farmers. Westlands gets its water from the federal Central Valley Project, which supplies water to a third of California's cropland and about 50 cities, including Sacramento, San Jose and several in the East Bay and on the Peninsula. The district's annual allotment of about 1.15 million acre feet -- enough to supply about 2.3 million families -- dwarfs those of all other project participants. The next biggest, the Contra Costa Water District's, is only 185,000 acre feet.
Now, Westlands and other districts are successfully renewing their long-term contracts at current levels and at prices far below those paid by the state's growing cities, despite protests that pumping large volumes of water south is killing Northern California's fisheries. So far, about 200 contracts have been approved, and 80 more are pending, including Westlands'. About 6 million acre feet of annual water deliveries is at stake.
Farmers who get federal water are generally charged a fraction of the free-market rate. Westlands, for example, pays as little as $31 an acre foot for its federal water, while the Marin Municipal Water District pays about $500 an acre foot for water from the Russian River, and Southern California cities pay $200 an acre foot and up for state project water.
Westlands' current water contract with the Bureau of Reclamation, the federal agency that operates the Central Valley Project, runs to 2008. Barring unforeseen difficulties, agency officials said, approval of the new contract is expected by mid-February. It will run for 25 years, with an option for a 25-year renewal. Opponents say the contract does not acknowledge an extreme environmental downside. They say Westlands will actually receive significantly more water than before, at the expense of Northern California's rivers.
Because of legislation implemented during the Clinton administration, Westlands annually received only a percentage of its quota, depending on the availability of water after meeting water quality standards for San Francisco Bay and the delta. Now, the intention of the new contract appears to be the full delivery of the quota. By Westlands taking more water from the delta, less is available for the fisheries of the Sacramento River and its delta, the Trinity River and -- indirectly, because the Trinity is a tributary -- the Klamath River.
The triumph of Big Agriculture is especially bitter to conservationists because it follows more than a decade of federal legislative moves designed to divide the state's available water in an equitable fashion among farmers, cities and the environment. A key landmark was the 1992 federal Central Valley Project Improvement Act, designed to end the litigation that had characterized California's water politics for decades. The act empowered a joint state and federal agency, CalFed, to embark on an ambitious program of environmental restoration in the Central Valley, the delta and San Francisco Bay. It also provided for a significant amount of fresh water to revitalize the beleaguered delta and bay. About 800,000 acre feet of water were earmarked for the delta.
But under the Bush administration, this era of cooperation stuttered, then reversed. In 2003, CalFed brokered a deal with state and federal project managers and water contractors providing for greater water exports from the delta. This month, a state appeals court ruled that CalFed's environmental documentation on its current programs is inadequate, because the agency didn't fully consider reducing water exports to Southern California.
WESTLANDS WATER DISTRICT FACT SHEET
* Size: 600,000 acres.
* Number of farms: 600.
* Number of working farmers: 200 to 2,500, depending on sources. Environmentalists claim lower numbers; Westlands staffers stand by the higher figures.
* Crops: Westlands produces more than 60 food and fiber crops, including almonds, pistachios, cotton, melons, lettuce and alfalfa. It is also an important dairy region.
* Annual gross revenues: About $1 billion.
* Amount of water used: Westlands has a contract with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation for 1.2 million acre feet of water annually. It buys extra water - less than 100,000 acre feet - from other districts.
* Delivery system: Westlands gets its water from the federal Central Valley Project. Water is pumped from the delta to San Luis Reservoir through the Delta-Mendota Canal, and from there it is delivered to Westlands through the San Luis and Coalinga canals. Water is then delivered to district farmers through 1,034 miles of underground pipe.
* The controversy: Environmentalists claim fisheries and wildlife in San Francisco Bay and the delta of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers are being hurt by excessive water exports to the western San Joaquin Valley, especially Westlands.
Where Westlands water comes from:
1. Water from north state reservoirs - Shasta Lake on the upper Sacramento River and Trinity Lake on the Trinity River - is sent southward, down the Sacramento River.
2. After entering the delta, the water is pumped to San Luis Reservoir and from there to Westlands.
3. The Westlands Water District has a federal contract for about 1.2 million acre feet of water delivered annually, or about 20 percent of the capacity of the Central Valley Project.