BUREAU OF RECLAMATION POLICIES
Editorial: Water proposal would suck life from rural areas
Redding Record Searchlight - 6/22/03

The Bureau of Reclamation insists it is merely husbanding the West's precious water. In the process, it risks washing away the rich texture of rural life.

The bureau is pushing to complete long-term contracts with water districts in the Central Valley Project. The deals mostly expired back in 1994, and the bureau and local agencies such as the Bella Vista Water District and the Clear Creek Community Services District have muddled through on interim contracts.

Reclamation's managers have a tight knot to unravel. Between exploding urban growth and increasing alarm about the health of fish stocks, its water is more than spoken for, even in wet years. Even a fair division of the limited acre-feet leaves nobody happy.

But the bureau is responding to a tough job with a perverse proposal: limiting delivery of agricultural water to farms of at least 5 acres, up from the current 2.

The bureau says it wants to fight abuse of federally subsidized water by rural residents whose "agricultural" endeavors consist of a koi pond and an acre of lawn. The water districts require ag users to file annual crop reports and business plans, but a quick skimming of the real estate ads will turn up sellers who tout their agricultural water and boast of their lush landscaping but fail to mention the cropland that water is supposed to serve. The taxpayer certainly shouldn't be on the hook for watering rose gardens on Palo Cedro ranchettes.

Cutting off all small users, however, is like fighting reckless drivers by closing the highway.

Bureau of Reclamation spokesman Jeff McCracken repeats, mantralike, that the water is meant for "viable agricultural enterprises" though he doesn't define that term. In a time when large farmers lose large piles of money and specialty growers can cultivate a respectable living on a relatively tiny plot, size is a strange measure of viability.

In Shasta County, many Mien immigrants have turned vacant lots into strawberry patches that are neighborhood magnets. The farmers markets are kept stocked with fresh produce scratched from humble plots. Abandoned olive groves in Happy Valley, which receive federal water through the Clear Creek district, are revived and made a going side business for their modern owners.

Raising the acreage limit would, in effect, triple water rates for 610 customers in the two water districts. Such a wallop to the bottom line is a sure way to prove the bureau's point that microfarms are not viable.

Abuse, again, is real, and the local water districts need to do what they must to show their good faith. "We don't want to be the water police," says Char Workman-Flowers, manager of the Clear Creek district, but they might not have a choice.

Reclamation says it is still negotiating, not dictating, though the local districts note that the agency controls the water, which gives it negotiating heft they can't hope to match. They might be right, but McCracken also says the policy-makers welcome comment from farmers making a go of agriculture on small plots. There's a time to sow, a time to reap, and a time to raise your voice.