Local professor weighs in on water world

By: GIG CONAUGHTON - Staff Writer | Saturday, April 29, 2006 11:38 PM PDT ∞

Using Roman Polanski's 1974 movie "Chinatown" as a backdrop, a UC San Diego professor has written a new book lauding Southern California's main water supplier, the Los Angeles-based Metropolitan Water District, and sharply criticizing San Diego County water leaders.

Steve Erie's "Beyond Chinatown" says that Metropolitan ---- which often has been characterized as a big, bad water bully and an extension of the city of Los Angeles' sprawling lust ---- is instead one of the greatest and most important public water agencies in the world.

The book also sharply criticizes the San Diego County Water Authority for its contrived "war" with Metropolitan, and its historic 2002 deal to buy billions of gallons of water from Imperial Valley farmers for up to 75 years ---- a deal that Erie says is already too expensive in 2006.

And the book says that "Chinatown," the Oscar-winning film that perpetuated and cemented the "myth" that corrupt Los Angeles stole its life-sustaining water supply from unsuspecting Owens Valley farmers, was "a great movie, but lousy history."

Water Authority and Metropolitan officials declined to comment last week, saying they would wait until they had read the book.

Erie, meanwhile, said early last week that although the official book release wasn't scheduled until Saturday, he had already sold 804 copies.

"For an academic book, that's pretty darn good," Erie said.

Puja Sangar, Stanford Press' marketing director, said the publishing company thought that Erie's book was important because water ---- which has always been scarce in rain-starved Southern California ---- is becoming an increasingly important topic owing to new potential shortages from its historical sources: the Colorado River and rainfall and snow melt from Northern California.

Spurred by water deal


Erie said that while it took him two years to write the 356-page book, he drew upon years of research, attending water agency meetings, perusing news accounts and interviewing dozens of water officials.

He decided to write it, he said, in part because of his fascination with the San Diego County Water Authority's controversial Imperial Valley water deal.

The still-controversial agreement shook up Southern California's water "status quo" because the Water Authority purposely tried to go around Metropolitan ---- the region's recognized supplier ---- to find its own water supply source.

Erie said Water Authority leaders labeled him "some kind of L.A. plant" during the mid-1990s because he vocally opposed the deal in academic talks.

The transfer was completed in 2002 after eight years of often-acrimonious debate among Water Authority, Metropolitan, Imperial Valley leaders, state and federal officials, and even leaders from other western states.

Under the transfer's general terms, Imperial Valley farmers are to send San Diego County residents up to 65 billion gallons of water a year, for 45 to 75 years, for up to $50 million a year. Until the deal, the Water Authority ---- and county residents ---- relied almost completely upon Metropolitan for its water.

Erie said that during his vocal opposition in the 1990s, Water Authority leaders sent a letter of protest to his chancellor, and even showed up at a UCSD Regents supper club where Erie was speaking.

"The top brass were all there and heckling me," Erie said of the Water Authority. "I couldn't believe it. The dean couldn't believe it. We still talk about it today. The germ of the book was planted that day."

Erie said he also decided to write the book because "very little" had been written about Metropolitan, the massive water supplier that supplies more than 18 million Southern Californians in six counties ---- including San Diego ---- with drinking water.

Despite the "Beyond Chinatown" title, the book really centers on Metropolitan, its formation, its history, and the challenges it has faced in bringing water from far away to Southern California ---- a near-desert area almost devoid of the water needed to sustain its population and economy.

Metropolitan was created by the California Legislature in 1928 to build and operate the Colorado River Aqueduct, which has delivered Colorado River water to the region ever since.

Owens Valley and 'Chinatown'


Erie's book starts before Metropolitan, with the city of Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, and its infamous "water grab" in the Owens Valley ---- some 250 miles from Los Angeles.

The Owens Valley deal began in 1905 and took decades to complete. Even as the Los Angeles Aqueduct was being built to bring the water from the Owens River to Los Angeles, some angry farmers protested by using dynamite to actually blow up the pipeline.

The deal remains controversial to this day, and it provided Los Angeles with the water supply it needed to become one of the pre-eminent cities in the world.

The movie "Chinatown" used a fictionalized version of the Owens Valley events as the backdrop for a murder mystery ---- cementing the actual deal in most people's minds as a swindle perpetrated by immoral businessmen who bought all the property in Owens Valley in order to steal its water and become millionaires when the new water increased real estate values in the San Fernando Valley.

Erie's book said there are parallels between actual events and "Chinatown's" fiction.

But in contrast to "Chinatown's" fiction, Erie's book said the Owens Valley deal was conducted by Los Angeles bureaucrats working for the public good, in the open, with overwhelming approval by Los Angeles voters.

But even the Owens Valley deal did not provide enough water to guarantee Los Angeles' ---- and Southern California's ---- future. "Beyond Chinatown" says that required tapping into the Colorado River.

Los Angeles could not afford the cost of doing that on its own. Consequently, Metropolitan was born, created by the state Legislature, and using the combined bonding power of Los Angeles and several other Southern California communities to come up with enough money to build the Colorado River Aqueduct ---- and dozens of important regional water projects since.

Erie said Metropolitan's formation created "an extraordinary, long-lived regional experiment in cooperative water provision" in Southern California.

But, the book said, Metropolitan also inherited the city of Los Angeles' "original sin" associated with Owens Valley ---- and has carried the "unfair" perception that it has been a pawn of Los Angeles' continued ambitions ever since.

San Diego's 'Chinatown'


One of the book's chapters is devoted to the Water Authority's "war" with Metropolitan in the 1990s, and the Water Authority's determination and struggle to create the Imperial Valley deal.

The deal, intended to break San Diego's dependence on Metropolitan, was a threat to the "regional cooperation" that Metropolitan had created among water agencies.

Erie said the Imperial Valley deal started out with a "Chinatown" flavor, featuring secret meetings between Water Authority leaders and "carpetbagger" land speculators in Imperial Valley ---- which created suspicion in the Valley.

And, Erie charged, Water Authority leaders "twisted" the history of its relationship as Metropolitan's largest customer. Erie said Water Authority leaders spread a lie that San Diego, rather than willingly joining Metropolitan as a customer in the 1940s, was forced into a "shotgun wedding" ---- a story he said the Water Authority used to drum up support for its transfer.

The two agencies did openly feud ---- in the courts, the Legislature and in Metropolitan's boardroom ---- from the mid-1990s forward, after the Water Authority started negotiating to "go around" Metropolitan and make its water transfer deal with Imperial Valley farmers.

During those years, the Water Authority publicly accused Metropolitan and the city of Los Angeles of conspiring to "cheat" San Diego County residents in the drought of 1991 by cutting San Diego County's water supply while increasing Los Angeles' supply. Metropolitan officials, and Erie, say that never happened.

The Water Authority also unsuccessfully sued Metropolitan over a water-allocation system that Metropolitan said didn't really exist, and over how much Metropolitan should be able to charge the Water Authority to "rent" Metropolitan pipelines to ship its Imperial Valley water.

And the Water Authority repeatedly voted against Metropolitan water projects ---- and even removed one of the Water Authority representatives to Metropolitan's board because he advocated cooperation between the agencies.

Metropolitan was no less antagonistic for years.

It suspended plans to build a pipeline to San Diego County after the Imperial Valley transfer negotiations were announced; filed lawsuits against the deal; spent $400,000 on a public relations campaign denouncing the deal; and prompted an investigation by the Legislature after some Metropolitan leaders spent $12,000 to secretly review the finances of San Diego leaders, and even some legislators, who favored the deal.

Too costly a deal


Erie, meanwhile, said last week that he thinks the Water Authority should have sought the Imperial Valley water through Metropolitan, rather than by trying to strike out on its own.

In the early 1990s, he said, Water Authority leaders promised they would only complete the deal if the billions of gallons they were buying from Imperial would cost less than what they pay Metropolitan.

But by the time the deal was completed in 2002, Erie said, it was apparent the Imperial Valley water would cost local ratepayers more than what it would have to buy the water from Metropolitan.

Water Authority officials defend the deal, and say it is the cornerstone of a more reliable water source for county residents ---- mainly because the Imperial Valley water has a higher "right" than Metropolitan's. That means, if a severe drought forces cutbacks on Colorado River supplies, even Metropolitan's supplies would be cut before San Diego's Imperial Valley water.

Asked if he thought that reliability had value, Erie said, "Yes, but at what cost?"

Erie also sharply criticized the Water Authority for being hypocritical. The agency has complained for decades that its voice is unfairly squashed in the Metropolitan boardroom by the city of Los Angeles ---- Metropolitan's mightiest member. But the Water Authority itself has allowed its weightiest member agency ---- the city of San Diego ---- to dominate its boardroom, ignoring or squashing input from smaller North County agencies.

Seven North County water agencies known as the Economic Study Group issued a study saying North County residents were being overcharged by the Water Authority because it adopted a "weighted" voting system in 1996 that gave the city of San Diego too much power. The group unsuccessfully sued to change the system, and pushed state legislators to intervene.

'On the right track'


Ironically, Erie said he believes the Water Authority is now "on the right track" in the 21st century, because it has become more like Metropolitan.

Once just a "pipeline" agency happy to simply deliver water from Metropolitan to San Diego County cities and agencies, the Water Authority has now sought out its own water transfer deal, is contemplating building its own plant to turn seawater into drinking water, and building many other water projects to protect the region.

"They should have done that 40 years ago," Erie said.

Meanwhile, Erie said now that he has completed "Beyond Chinatown," he is anxious to get started on a new book ---- all about the city of San Diego and its ongoing financial problems.

"Troubled paradise," he said. "I'm already starting to research that one."

Contact staff writer Gig Conaughton at (760) 739-6696 or gconaughton@nctimes.com.

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