Water Authority entering talks with NorCal farmers

By: GIG CONAUGHTON - Staff Writer | Monday, October 1, 2007 11:10 AM PDT ∞

SAN DIEGO ---- Hoping to find new water supplies because of looming statewide cuts, the San Diego County Water Authority voted Thursday to enter talks with Northern California farmers to buy enough water to sustain 60,000 households.

Water Authority board members voted to have their staff start negotiating with the Butte Water District ---- a district north of Sacramento that serves mostly farmers in that county.

The Water Authority hopes to reach a deal to buy up to 30,000 acre-feet of water from Butte in 2008 just in case the state is forced to cut Southern California's northern water supplies next year because of a court ruling.

Water Authority officials, who have already asked the public to cut back water use, say the Butte deal could help the county avoid mandatory cuts.

In August, a federal judge ruled that the pumps that send water to Southern California through the Sacramento-San Joaquin delta would have to be cut back in 2008 in order to protect an endangered fish, the delta smelt.

The delta, commonly referred to as the bay delta because it flows into the San Francisco Bay, is the heart of the massive State Water Project, a 600-mile series of dams, reservoirs, pumps and pipelines that send rainfall and snowmelt from Northern California south.

The Metropolitan Water District, Southern California's main water supplier, has said the cutback in pumping could cause the region to lose 30 percent of its northern water supplies. Those supplies made up two-thirds of Southern California's imported water this year.

San Diego County residents, through the Water Authority, are Metropolitan's biggest customers.

Any new Butte deal could also be affected by the court case brought on by the smelt. Because Butte is north of the bay delta it would be affected by the same pumping cutbacks, perhaps even more so.

Water Authority officials said when the state had the chance to pump water from the bay delta, it would want to pump its own water deliveries, rather than private transfers such as the Butte deal.

"That's going to be a critical factor," Water Authority board member Keith Lewinger said. "Because you can't move water when the pumps are shut down and once the pumps come back on, the State Water Project's going to want to push all its water through."

Gordon Hess, the Water Authority's director of water resources, said the Butte deal was still worth pursuing as a hedge against reduced water supplies.

Hess said if the current drought conditions in Northern California persisted this winter, which would further reduce Southern California's supplies, there would be less water in the bay delta.

That would allow more room to move water transfer deals such as the Butte deal.

Because of that, Hess said, the Water Authority would try to work a deal with Butte that would give it options on whether it had to take the water.

Hess and others also said the Water Authority could store the water from the Butte deal in a groundwater storage "bank," where it could be pulled out later.

Hess said he was reluctant to talk about how much the water in the Butte deal could cost. However, he said after the meeting that it would probably cost more than the $125 per acre foot that Northern California water transfers were offered to the Los Angeles-based Metropolitan Water District in 2005.

Hess said any transfer deal would include a price for the water and a cost for moving it through state and Metropolitan pipelines to San Diego County.

Water Authority staff members said they would come back to the agency's board with a proposed deal in December.

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

6 comment(s)[-]Go to Top

Redirect "clean" water wrote on Sep 28, 2007 7:01 AM:Every time we read news items about delta issues, it is strange that nobody suggests that WE find alternative methods to conserve the water we DO use so that our use is less. Is it so impossible to imagine that ALL new projects be self-sufficient or at least have their water use severely curtailed by the adoption of new measures to capture individual grey water in a separte system, to be used for landscaping and other non-potable uses. Why is it that we take good water and have it go into our sewer systems withought attempting to divert the water that is not "unclean" ? We really do need to make some chnge and restricy ANY building unless these methods are used, otherwise, we will NEVER have enough water to grow our food or even exist.-

Water Rat wrote on Sep 28, 2007 8:44 AM:Because of our outstanding conservation efforts, S. Calif has added millions of new residents over the years and NOT taken a drop additional or extra imported water. The use of "Gray" water is regulated by "Health" agencies and not local water providers. Northern Calif has the water and Southern Calif has the population. Maybe we can require a million or so of our residents to move north and our problem will go away!!-

NorCal Guy wrote on Sep 28, 2007 9:56 AM:Water Rat, I'll thank you kindly to keep your million or so residents down in SoCal where they belong. I certainly would prefer they stay out of my rural NorCal area, so it stays the way it is.

Stupid Question wrote on Sep 28, 2007 1:39 PM:Did SoCal water board managers just now realize there was a problem? Just now starting negotiations? Why not get on board with desalination that has been stalled so we have some competition? Don't we pay water "managers" to manage your, and our, business? It isn't like this happened over night. Now they blame the consumers, Farmers and home owners for using to much. If you can't do your job finding water quit and let someone that knows supply and demand run things.

Down with desal wrote on Sep 29, 2007 10:45 AM:If anyone does a little bit of research on desal instead of swallowing what the big businessmen tell the public, you will see that desal is a horrible method of getting water to the masses. It uses way more energy than regular water treatment, fiscally unsound, sucks up marine life through a big pipe, cooks them, and spits out brine back into the sea. Desal just doesn't work and is horrible for the environment.

Move into the 21st century wrote on Oct 1, 2007 12:15 PM:If we want to support all these people in a desert, we have to get more efficient about water use and improve desalination techology. Building more dams and a peripheral canal will cost billions and billions of dollars and Southern California will still be dependent on 20th century technology. We need new fuels and we need to rethink water. BTW, how much energy is used to pump water from the Delta and move it uphill to and over the Tehachapis? I'd like to see it compared to desal's energy costs.-

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