Water transfers cast wary eye on future
Chico Enterprise Record - 2/21/03
By Heather Hacking, staff writer

When Metropolitan Water District of Southern California came shopping for water late last year, area water users took notice.

Transfers for 97,200 acre-feet of surface water were finalized last week with Western Canal Water District, Glenn-Colusa Irrigation District and Richvale Irrigation District.

Water districts that participated in the $100-an-acre-foot sale say the fallowing of about 30,000 acres of land, mostly planted in rice, is within the historic range of what gets fallowed anyway. District managers and board members say that amount of land out of production won't significantly affect the local economy, and that a lot of energy and money will be spent improving fields for future years.

No group has come out to actively oppose the water transfers taking place this year, but the sales have generated a lot of discussion by different factions wary of what water sales could mean in the future.

Some of the key areas of concern are the effect on overall farming economics, the message the water deals send to the rest of the state and whether more review of the deals should have been required.

Butte, Glenn and Colusa county farm bureaus have been talking about cumulative effects of water deals, especially if they start to become a regular occurrence.

Glenn County Farm Bureau president Larry Domenighini said there are impacts on farm-related businesses when farmland is taken out of production. He said his group is telling business people to watch their sales figures this year with the fallowing and "prepare their case."

"When you take water away, there's not much left in California agriculture," Domenighini said. "We're telling businesses to keep third-party impacts in the back of their minds when they're looking at profit and loss."

There's also the issue of decreased sales tax to cities and counties when seed and chemicals are not purchased, he said.

Larry Massa grows rice in Colusa County and raises cattle in Glenn County. He said his trucking company contacted him and asked if he was going to fallow ground this year.

"They were trying to find out who is and who isn't," Massa said. If the trucking company lost too many customers, they'd just stick to trucking freight and sell some equipment, Massa relayed.

Dale Jones runs an aerial crop dusting company in Biggs. He said he will be forced to raise prices and expects overall his employees will have slightly smaller paychecks this year.

He said he understands why growers are choosing to sell and that they can improve their ground when not planting.

"My big beef is they should admit there will be some impact on third parties and not try to make it look like there's no problem," Jones said.

George Tibbitts, president of Colusa County Farm Bureau, said his group isn't against water transfers, but they have concerns.

"When you export water, you're exporting jobs," said Tibbitts, a rice farmer. He said shifting economic activity to another part of the state can undermine the agricultural infrastructure that surrounds individual farms.

He's also concerned that the water is being sold too cheaply. "It's obviously worth a lot more to them down there than it is up here," he said.

Butte County Farm Bureau president Tod Kimmelshue said his members have been "wrestling with what are the long-term benefits of the sale of water and what are the downfalls."

Any additional income to a historically poor area will be attractive, he said.

"Maybe all the water districts need to put together a bargaining association so we can get the most money we possibly can for this water and maybe share some with local governments so everybody in Northern California benefits," he said.

"It's our natural resource up in Northern California and hopefully all residents could benefit."

John Garner is the chair of the water advisory committee for the California Farm Bureau Federation. He said Northern California needs to stay focused on the need for increased water storage in the state.

When the south started shopping for water, "we had open arms," Garner said.

"The first thing that came to mind is when you're starting to make transfers based upon fallowing, in essence you're substituting new storage on the back of agriculture," Garner said.

If farmers get into the habit of fallowing ground, there may come a time when state water managers will argue, "you've fallowed in the past, you can do it again," he said.

The Farm Bureau wants to keep farms in business, he said. The state Farm Bureau has opposed habitat conversion that takes out ag land. They're also opposed to urban sprawl on farmland, and taking land out of production to sell water, Garner said.

"I want my kids and grandkids to be able to farm in California," he said.

The industry and infrastructure need to stay whole for agriculture to survive, he said. If water is going to be sold, he said he would prefer selling surface water, but using groundwater to continue to plant crops.

Tibbitts also rallied for increased pressure for more water storage. Two years ago, deals transferred water from annual crops in the north to longer-term investments such as orchard crops in Central California. That was different, he said. This time it's to cities.

"To the extent we accommodate cities by shipping them water, we take away the pressure of what we think needs to be done" for future water storage, Tibbitts said.

"There are some who look at it as an economic decision and what profit they might make, or loss minimizes. I don't hold that against them at all," Tibbitts said.

However, "my own personal philosophy is I would like to avoid idling ground."

If water is transferred, he said he'd rather see the planting of crops that use less water, and then excess water could be sold.

Kimmelshue, of the Butte County Farm Bureau, agreed pressure should be maintained for more water storage. Water sales are only a temporary solution. "Metropolitan Water District is going to come back knocking on our doors again."

Barbara Vlamis of the Butte Environmental Council said her agency believes more conservation by urban areas needs to occur and metropolitan areas need to stay within "realistic water budgets."

"Pools in the desert don't make sense," she said. Vlamis acknowledged that Metropolitan Water District has done "quite a bit with low-flow toilets" and other water efficiency programs, but believes there needs to be even more done to save water.

Vlamis also thinks there should have been more review of the current water transfer deal. She said the California Environmental Quality Act requires that transfers look at the overall impacts a project will have and that the package of individual deals with districts should have been looked at as a whole.

Bob Landress, president of California Waterfowl Association, said his staff is also tracking the water transfers. He said his group needs agriculture to continue, especially duck-friendly crops like rice and wheat, because the fields provide habitat for birds.

"Because it was a single year (transfer), they were able to get away from the larger (California Environmental Quality Act) process," Landress said. "I think they recognize they can't do that for very long.

He added that he believes if all the different groups that rely on water work together, they'll be able to find solutions that benefit waterfowl and keep agriculture viable.

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