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WATERWARS - DRAIN GAMES

The latest chapter in the long-running effort to solve drainage issues in the San Luis Unit has the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation considering handing over ownership of a large section of the Central Valley Project to farmers and water districts.

A 20-page proposal, "Concepts for Collaboration Drainage Resolution," proposed by Westlands, suggests that Westlands and other water districts on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley assume responsibility for developing a way to collect and dispose of the salty, selenium- laced water that drains off the land after irrigation. In exchange, Westlands would receive less water-1 million acre-feet instead of 1.4 million acre-feet per year. Westlands would be assigned a permit for a water right instead of a contract-the water right would no longer need review and renewal every 25 years unlike the water contract.

This change from a contract to a water right is one issue that concerns many CVP watchdogs. The California Water Impact Network's Tom Stokely says that by attaining a water right-vs. a contract-Westlands and the other San Luis water districts don't face the prospect of having deliveries of water cut to as little as zero-as agricultural service contractors do-in the event of a bad drought. In other words, says Stokely, they're becoming exchange contractors with higher water rights-and that poses a big problem for the Delta. "If [Westlands] gets a water right, are they then not responsible for Delta water quality?" asks Stokely.

But Westlands contends it will still have to submit to the environmental requirements of the CVP Improvement Act. "Do we still remain subject to precipitation regulations and what actually falls and makes it way through the Delta? It's exactly the same," says Westlands' Sara Woolf.

BurRec's Jeff McCracken says the San Luis Unit will own the canals from the pumps south. "We would still operate and manage the pumps . . . continue to operate under the Endangered Species Act. Basically, we have the pump and they have the bucket," says McCracken. McCracken adds that the San Luis Unit districts cannot become exchange contractors without the approval of Congress.

The proposal from Westlands came about a month before the final Record of Decision was approved by the Interior Department. The new ROD plans to retire 194,000 instead of the original proposal to retire 308,000 acres-roughly half of Westlands' total acreage-due to the projected economic hit to the valley.

"You can't just turn the land back into desert and not think about what that means in terms of the huge impacts to take that kind of an economy out of the system both locally and statewide," says Woolf. The costs to implement the ROD are estimated at $2.2 billion, as treatment and waste disposal-including a system of reverse osmosis and evaporation ponds -will be needed to handle the waste water from 114,000 acres of drainage impaired lands.

In the proposal from Westlands, land retirement is mentioned, though no specific numbers are given. The district, with a total of 600,000 acres, has already taken roughly 40,000 acres out of production. As with the ROD, retirement would be combined with waste treatment and disposal via a system of sprinklers distributing wastewater on gravel. Proposals like this worry Stokely, who notes that other sprinkleron- gravel projects have not worked well when sprinklers clogged. "The moral of this story is, be suspicious of 'miracle' technologies that show up at the last minute," he says.

Given the roughly 50 years that have passed since the San Luis Unit was constructed when the government first pledged to deal with everything- including drainage- it's time to move forward, says Woolf. "This is a very large undertaking at significant risk and a large investment for us, but if we don't take it on, it will continue to languish," she says.

So BurRec is moving ahead on what McCracken says are parallel tracks-one that's working to implement the ROD and one that's evaluating and negotiating the proposal from Westlands to create a Joint Powers Authority for the San Luis reservoir, canals, and drainage.

In return for assuming responsibility for drainage, Woolf says her district and others in the San Luis Unit want a reliable supply of water. They say they're giving up a big chunk of water-400,000 acre-feet-to the CVP to help meet environmental needs. The Bay Institute's Gary Bobker questions the amount, noting that although on paper Westlands is giving up 400,000 acre-feet of its contracted amount of 1.4 million acre-feet, it never receives its full contracted amount. On average, it receives around 800,000 acre-feet, so in Bobker's math, Westlands is locking down more water.

"What they're agreeing to is what they're getting now anyway," notes Bobker. "And so are they now getting more and causing cuts elsewhere in the system? This proposal only dangles the environmental benefit; it doesn't allocate water for the environment."

As proof that contractors are getting more, not less, Bobker says the draft plan reduces the San Luis Unit contractors' payments for habitat restoration-required under the CVPIA- by $1 and change. Contractors pay by the acre-foot into this fund. And so on the one hand, Westlands, et al. say they're getting less water, but on the other, they're reducing their peracre- foot payments for the benefit of the environment, says Bobker. "The answer is that they're not really getting less water," he says.

Details like these will need to be gone over with a fine tooth comb, says Bobker, who like other observers, sees a long, arduous process ahead. The first order of business: Add specifics. "It's extraordinarily complex, and it's extraordinarily vague," says Bobker. "It's not just dealing with drainage anymore…it's a very big proposal… not something that's going to turn into a deal in two weeks."

CONTACT: Gary Bobker (415)272-6616; Jeff McCracken (916)978-5100 KC

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