San Diego has secure water supplies that are the envy of many agencies throughout the western United States.
The key to this was an agreement reached 20 years ago this week with the Imperial Irrigation District to send Colorado River water from that desert farming region to San Diego County.
The nation’s largest agriculture-to-urban water transfer was primarily accomplished through vast payments by San Diego to Imperial Valley farmers to modernize their operations to conserve water, along with other efficiency measures.
San Diego water managers look at the pact — technically called the “Quantification Settlement Agreement” — as the bedrock component of a multi-pronged, successful effort to give the coastal region reliable, independent water supplies.
The flip side is this program is escalating costs for San Diego ratepayers, though water from the agreement is not the most expensive part of it.
Meanwhile, uncertainty is growing over water availability in the years ahead.
California, six other western states and Native American tribes are under continued pressure from the U.S. federal government to reduce their take from the Colorado River, which has been strained by drought, climate change and generations of overuse.
Meanwhile, the water transfer agreement remains highly controversial in the Imperial Valley, raising questions about whether it would be renewed in the future.
That decision apparently wouldn’t come until 2047, when the pact expires. The agreement can be extended through 2077 if both the Imperial district and the San Diego County Water Authority agree.
The caveat on that timeline is if negotiations over the Colorado River’s future significantly alter the so-called “Law of the River,” established over more than a century of agreements, court decisions and contracts that determine who has priority to the water.
The Imperial Irrigation District has more senior water rights than just about anybody under existing rules, meaning other agencies would be forced to cut water before the IID had to give up any. The water flowing to San Diego is protected by Imperial’s water rights.
The history of competition for water in the West is filled with blatant power plays, deception and occasional violence. Suspicions continue to this day.
But the recent deep drought and grim long-term prognosis for the Colorado River — last winter’s deluges notwithstanding — have forged a new sense of collaboration among water agencies.
Perhaps no greater illustration of that came on Saturday during a discussion of the water transfer as part of the Voice of San Diego’s annual “Politifest” at the University of San Diego. The top s at the county water authority and the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California talked glowingly about their increasing cooperation now and into the future, along with other water stakeholders.
Keep in mind, these two agencies have a bitter history of litigation and animosity, as the Voice’s MacKenzie Elmer noted, but seemingly have turned the page. San Diego pursued the Imperial deal in large part to gain more independence from Met. The San Diego authority is a member of the Metropolitan umbrella group and during the drought in the 1990s faced large cutbacks by Met, then the main water supplier.
Metropolitan and the Coachella Valley Water District were also parties to the agreement. The pact helped California limit the amount of water it takes from the Colorado River.
“I think we can do this together and not leave anyone behind,” Adel Hagekhalil, general manager and CEO of Metropolitan said during the discussion. “. . . The thing about ‘me versus you’ is (it) doesn’t work anymore.”
At one point, he and Dan Denham, general manager of the water authority, actually bumped fists. But that kumbaya moment didn’t exactly wipe out years of wariness among all the ists.
Tina Shields, water department manager for the Imperial Irrigation District, touched on some of the pluses and minuses of the San Diego transfer and the larger water dynamics.
She noted that the agreement helped modernize agriculture in the Imperial Valley, shifting from flood irrigation to drip and sprinkler systems, in addition to lining canals to limit seepage and building reservoirs.
But she added that reduced farm runoff has shrunk the Salton Sea, leaving salt deposits and creating more dust.
“We have whiteout dust storms that we didn’t used to have,” she said.
Shields noted that the district’s board voted down the transfer agreement twice, in part because there wasn’t enough assistance pledged to deal with the impact of the Salton Sea drying up. She added that the state is now “stepping up” with a restoration plan, though it was 15 years late.
Denham talked about the desire to form an interconnected water market among western agencies, which would rely heavily on Metropolitan’s massive plumbing system.
San Diego, which years ago significantly underestimated how much its consumers would conserve, now has an abundance of water and selling some of it could help defray costs. The cost of the authority’s water agreements, new pipelines and storage capacity have added up, though perhaps no expense has attracted as much scrutiny as the desalination plant in Carlsbad.
The cost of desalinated ocean water was about $3,100 per acre-foot in the most recent fiscal year, compared with $1,600 from Metropolitan and $1,495 from Imperial, according to the San Diego authority. An acre-foot is 326,000 gallons and can serve up to three typical households in a year.
“I’m not sure the Imperial Valley is a big believer in water markets,” Shields said. “We’re a big believer in protecting our community. And investing in our community, which has its own challenges.”
She said some of the current farmers’ ancestors built canals and other waterworks long ago.
“It’s very personal in the Imperial Valley,” she said.
“It is our community’s water,” she said, “and that’s (what) we as a public agency really try to protect. . . When you have as much water as we have and have so few people, politically you have a huge target on your back.”
The Imperial board approved the San Diego agreement on a 3-2 vote, and Shields noted the ing the deal soon were no longer on the board. Two immediately lost re-election bids and one died before the end of his term.
Shields, nevertheless, agreed that collaboration is a must.
“Now we have new crises, and how do we make that work and make sure that while there are beneficiaries, there aren’t losers to the deal?” she said. “I think that’s what we’ve done the last 20 years.”
“It’s going to be tough… We are going to be more dependent on one another,” she added.
She wryly concluded on a trust-but- note about “these partnerships that will continue into the future.”
“I’m glad we’re recording this,” she said.
