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A new Mason-Dixon line runs down the middle of the San Joaquin
Valley where a historic civil war erupted this month between east
and west agricultural titans over water for crops worth more than $4
billion annually.
It's unprecedented warfare for the San Joaquin River, and the
loser could wind up with large chunks of farmland supporting
tumbleweeds instead of cotton or grapes.
But this war also could create water refugees all over the state.
It could topple decades-old contracts throughout California, force
more state control of water basins and end a tenuous armistice among
environmentalists, cities and farmers.
"The rest of the state has already seen that this could
undermine every major planning effort in California," says
water lawyer Gary Sawyers, representing east Valley farmers.
Those widespread effects may not appear for many months or even
years, but the war is hot right now in the Valley.
The first shot came without warning from the west. Westlands
Water District, a 600,000-acre area suffering chronic water
shortages over the last decade, used two untested, 57-year-old laws
to ask the state for almost a third of the San Joaquin River's 1.7
million to 1.8 million acre-feet of annual flow.
Most of the river's water is already being used by 15,000 east
Valley farmers on 1 million farmland acres. The river has been the
hub of farm life on the east side for five decades.
Yet Westlands' 600 growers applied to the State Water Resources
Control Board for an average of 520,000 acre-feet of the river
annually -- about the capacity of Millerton Lake. The application
would probably take five years to process if the state board even
decides to consider it.
By many accounts, the political fallout from this bomb and the
resulting legal wrangling would linger much longer.
Westlands officials and farmers know they dropped a bomb, but
they say they are not trying to start a war. They're exercising
their legal rights, they say, and trying to call attention to a
water shortage problem they have been facing virtually alone.
They believe east-side farmers will come to understand that they
need to join Westlands in the fight for more water in the Valley.
"No one on the west side covets that river water," said
cotton grower Mark Borba, whose brother, Ross, is on the Westlands
board. "I think now is a time for ag to stick together and
focus our attention on the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. We need all
the water in our contract, not half."
In most of the last eight years, the bureau has told Westlands to
expect only half of its 1.15 million acre-foot allotment from
Northern California. That's enough water to supply more than 4
million people.
The bureau, owner and operator of the Central Valley Project that
delivers water to Westlands and Friant, has been hamstrung by
environmental law in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta in
Northern California.
The environmental law, passed in 1992, forced officials to cut
Delta water deliveries in half for Westlands -- a mammoth 500,000
acre-foot-plus shortage annually.
Meantime, east-side farmers continued to get their water from
Millerton Lake northeast of Fresno and pay an environmental
restoration fee under the law. But they do not give up water for
restoration in Northern California because they argued successfully
that they needed every drop of the river water at Millerton.
In contrast, over the last eight years, some west-side farmers
have gone bankrupt over the lack of water. Crop loans are difficult
to get, land values are slumping, fields are fallowed.
The situation calls for drastic measures, says John Harris, a
Westlands grower who also farms on the east side of the Valley.
"It's unfortunate that some people were upset by this,"
he says. "But this is a card Westlands had to play."
The risk was considered for many months, officials say. District
lawyer Tom Birmingham says his research makes him optimistic about
the district's chances.
"We did a lot of analysis as you can imagine," said
district lawyer Tom Birmingham. "There is a very good chance
Westlands will be successful."
East side farmers, now scrambling to assemble a legal defense,
know Birmingham's statement is not an idle threat.
So this is war, says Richard Moss, general manager of the Friant
Water Users Authority, which delivers the water to the 15,000
farmers. And the stakes are higher than just east-side agriculture.
If Westlands were successful, Moss says, the multibillion-dollar
CalFed program to balance state water supplies for the environment,
farms and cities could be derailed, as would the campaign to restore
the San Joaquin River.
Why? Many districts, cities, counties and agencies might also
apply for water that already is assigned to other areas. The
resulting tangle of administrative process and lawsuits would take
new laws and a generation of court hearings to unravel.
There would be so little trust left in the California water
community that no one would be willing to compromise on balancing
supplies for the whole state and helping the environment. Moss
believes the paralysis would be devastating.
"It has the potential to affect so many people that you
would have chaos," Moss says.
Before the issue even gets into a legal arena, Friant will state
its case to congressional representatives, Interior Secretary Bruce
Babbitt, state politicos and water districts in droves.
"We're trying to get universal condemnation, and I think
many people will agree with us," Moss says. "We think
Westlands will be isolated from legislators, environmentalists and
other parts of the state. The best thing for everyone is for this to
go away soon."
Many in the water community believe it will go away eventually.
They cannot fathom how the state could dry up the orchards and
grapes -- and small towns -- that have flourished on the east side
for 50 years.
But this issue won't go away soon, say officials for Westlands.
Many experts agree Westlands has a legal argument for the San
Joaquin.
"I can't see why anyone would allow Westlands to take a
third of the San Joaquin River to grow cotton on a selenium desert
-- that's the silver lining," says Fresno lawyer Lloyd Carter,
longtime Westlands critic. "But I know the law, and Westlands
does have an argument. Maybe the state board will finally do its job
and split the baby to decide who gets the water."
Westlands' legal argument comes from laws conceived in the 1920s
and 1930s when the state was enduring a long drought. Leaders were
crafting massive projects to move river water from Northern
California to southern urban areas and central farming belts.
But the leaders also wanted to protect Northern California
counties from losing too much water and drying up their potential
development -- which happened years after Los Angeles' 1913 water
grab from the Owens Valley in Inyo County.
So leaders hedged their water project planning by adding the
"county of origin" law to the water code, which was passed
in the Legislature in 1943.
The law allows property owners, cities and other entities in
counties where the rivers originate to get water for development and
other uses. A similar law, "watershed of origin," provides
the same protection with some technical differences, so Westlands
has applied under both laws.
Decades ago, the laws were basically aimed at Northern
California, where major rivers were being tapped for water projects,
says Jerry Johns, assistant director of water rights for the State
Water Resources Control Board, which will decide on Westlands'
application.
"They were pretty smart to protect the watersheds as they
were planning to send water to different parts of the state,"
Johns says. "The protection really hasn't been used much until
now."
Indeed, lawyers say there is virtually no case law on it. The law
is not clear on whether people in an area of origin can take back
water that already has been assigned to some other place. That's
probably the most worrisome part for Friant.
Three other applications under these area of origin laws have
come before the state board in the last several years. They include
El Dorado County on the American River, San Joaquin County on the
Stanislaus River and Solano County on the Sacramento River.
But those applications are for much smaller amounts of water than
Westlands is seeking, officials say. In Solano County, for instance,
three cities -- Vacaville, Fairfield and Benicia -- are asking for
about 30,000 acre-feet of the Sacramento at a time of year when
extra water should be available.
"The application came in more than a year ago," says
Johns. "We have to deal with downstream protests, and that can
take time. But we haven't had anything the size of the Westlands
application, and no one's quite sure how it applies on the San
Joaquin River."
Some opponents are not concerned, however. Alex Hildebrand,
farmer and board member of the South Delta Water Agency in San
Joaquin County, says he thinks the state board won't even consider
Westlands' application after it takes a hard look.
"It's a matter of whether it's an appropriate
application," he says. "It's so outlandish that it
couldn't be valid. We in agriculture need to solve our problems by
creating new water storage, not be taking water from each
other."
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