Water Thrift Plan for State Unveiled

SAN DIEGO — The state’s top water official Monday unveiled an intricate plan for Southern California to survive with significantly less water from the Colorado River in case the federal government makes good on a threatened cutback.

But the plan would require unprecedented cooperation between warring water agencies and acquiescence from neighboring states whose anger over Southern California’s lavish water use has been rising.

And neither that intrastate cooperation nor interstate acquiescence was immediately evident.

“California wants to continue to enjoy free water,” said Pat Mulroy, general manager of the Las Vegas-based Southern Nevada Water Authority.

As unveiled by David Kennedy, director of the state Department of Water Resources, the so-called California Plan contained blanks where crucial numbers about water usage and crop acreage should be.

What’s more, a key portion of the plan, storing surplus water in Lake Mead, was immediately opposed by representatives from Colorado, Nevada and Arizona who had been invited to attend the meeting of California water agencies that draw on the Colorado River. The Arizona representative called the idea “a fairy tale” that will never happen.

Kennedy, an appointee of Gov. Pete Wilson, is attempting to cobble together a plan to keep the state from being unprepared if Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt carries through on his threat to reduce California’s use of Colorado River water by more than 20%.

“It’s either this or 20 years of litigation,” Kennedy said during a break in the meeting of the Colorado River Board of California.

Babbitt’s top water consultant, a professor at the University of California’s Boalt Hall School of Law, expressed optimism, albeit cautiously, that an agreement can be reached on a list of divisive issues.

“There have been big steps taken but there are still a lot of blanks,” said Joseph L. Sax. “As you know, there is a long history of non-progress on these issues.”

Southern California’s three largest agricultural water districts--in the Coachella, Palo Verde (Blythe area) and Imperial valleys--continue to meet weekly with Kennedy, the Metropolitan Water District and other interested parties, but progress on key points has been slow.

“Sometimes I leave the meetings and I feel good,” said Tom Levy, general manager of the Coachella Valley Water District. “Other times I leave and feel suicidal.”

Kennedy said he hoped to have a proposal ready within two months. As he has outlined it, the California Plan includes San Diego County buying water from the water-rich Imperial Valley, and officials in the Imperial, Palo Verde and Coachella valleys agreeing to cap the number of acres being irrigated with Colorado River water.

The crucial numbers--how much water San Diego will buy, how much San Diego will pay the MWD to have the water sent to San Diego via the district’s aqueduct, and the acreage limit to be imposed on the three agricultural districts--are still under negotiation.

Another key part of Kennedy’s plan would be an agreement among Southern California agencies to stop complaining to the federal government that their neighboring agency is wasting water.

Coachella, for example, has long complained that the Imperial Irrigation District, the largest water user in Southern California and the largest agricultural irrigation district in the country, is notoriously wasteful.

“If we’re going to have peace,” Kennedy said, “we’re going to have to start by not having any side skirmishes.”

Said Levy, “He wants to cut my tongue out.”

Kennedy’s plan calls for storing surplus water in Lake Mead, the behemoth reservoir behind Hoover Dam. That is particularly important to the MWD, water wholesaler to 16 million people in Southern California, because it would allow the mega-agency to “bank” water for years in which the Colorado River flow is diminished.

Other states, however, oppose such a move for fear it would turn Lake Mead into a reservoir for California and not a facility for several states. Lake Mead is run by the federal government, which would have to approve the banking idea.

The Arizona, Colorado and Nevada officials said Kennedy’s plan for conservation and sharing does not go far enough. They complained that it does nothing to prepare for years in which the Colorado River dips so that not even the assured allocations--in California’s case, 4.4 million acre-feet--can be counted on.

“What I see is an effort by California to continue to use 4.4 million for an indefinite period of time” even in low years, said Rita Pearson, director of Arizona’s Water Resources Department. “That is simply unfair.”

California for years has been exceeding its Colorado River allocation and has known that it could not continue to do so indefinitely. The urgency to develop a conservation plan springs from a tough speech last December by Babbitt, in which the former Arizona governor bluntly stated that California had been living wide and wet on other people’s water for too long.

In a speech to officials from the seven Western states that draw from the Colorado River, Babbitt said California could no longer count on taking more water each year from the Colorado River than it is guaranteed under a decades-old agreement between the states and the federal government.

Officials in Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, Utah, Wyoming and New Mexico have pressured the federal government to rein in California’s draw from the Colorado River, which supplies 70% of Southern California’s water.

Last year, California took 18% more than its allocated share, largely because Babbitt declared that Arizona and Nevada had unused surplus allocations. But those states are rapidly approaching the day when they will need their entire allocations, leaving California with a shortfall.

That 18% represents 800,000 acre-feet, enough to satisfy the needs of 1.6 million families for a year--hence the pressure on California and its regional agencies to find a way to survive with less through conservation and sharing.

To provide even greater incentive for California to change its water-using ways, Babbitt said that he would like to see a plan from California even before Nevada and Arizona begin needing their entire allocations.

Without such a plan, Babbitt said, he would be disinclined to declare the unused portion of Nevada and Arizona’s allocations to be surplus, thus leading to an immediate and drastic cutback for Southern California.

Sax, who assisted Babbitt in writing the speech, said the two-month time frame mentioned by Kennedy seems appropriate for getting a plan to the Interior chief. In two months Babbit would just be deciding whether surpluses exist for 1998.