Environmental damage to the Salton Sea is among the contested issues regarding a water transfer from the Imperial Valley to the San Diego region. — Peggy Peattie
REPRINTED FROM THE SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE
WRITTEN BY MICHAEL GARDNER
Imperial Valley water nursed the San Diego region through the recent drought, providing a welcome cushion from even more painful rationing.
But the future of the largest water transfer in the nation’s history remains cloudy even as it enters a 10th year of sales.
That’s because legal challenges filed by a number of critics could very well be upheld, eventually forcing a rewrite of one of the most contentious chapters in a century of Western water law.
If that happens, “we’re right back to where we were before 2003. We start fighting over water all over again,” said Dan Hentschke, an attorney for the San Diego County Water Authority.
A state appeals court in Sacramento will take up the now-consolidated lawsuits Monday, although a ruling is not expected immediately and will no doubt be appealed.
The outcome is paramount to the San Diego region, where supplies are growing tighter and prices are climbing. In 2011 alone, Imperial Valley farmers have sent 80,000 acre-feet — enough to cover the needs of 160,000 average households for the year. Cumulatively, by the time the 2012 sale is complete, about 500,000 acre-feet will have been delivered to the water authority for $344 million since the first modest sale in 2003.
“No one can deny we need more water and having a long-term agreement is priceless,” said Ruben Barrales, president of the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce.
The legal challenge could turn on the constitutionality of one slice of a much larger seven-state agreement to share the Colorado River that authorized the water transfer among its numerous terms.
Sacramento Superior Court Judge Roland Candee in late 2009 ruled that the state unconstitutionally committed to writing a blank check for projects designed to offset the environmental consequences related to the transfer.
That violation, Candee said in his 47-page decision, cast enough pall over the entire river deal to warrant invalidating a dozen or so pieces of the broader accord that solely affect California.
The opening win cheered the challengers, chiefly led by the Imperial County Board of Supervisors and that county’s air pollution control district. They contend the agreement is flawed in that it does not go far enough to safeguard residents from the economic and environmental fallout of widespread fallowing of farm land and the loss of water considered the valley’s life blood.
“We are not categorically opposed. We just want to see it done correctly,” said Antonio Rossmann, Imperial County’s attorney.
That also seems to be the prevailing mood among farmers, many of whom fought the initial transfer but have since been resigned to watching water flow to the coast.
mike.gardner@uniontrib.com (916) 445-2934
