Water Transfer Weighed
By
John Lindt
California - Another transfer of state surface water from farms in Kings County to southern California appears to be in the works. The news comes on the heels of a purchase of water rights from the Dudley Ridge Water District in southwest Kings County to Mojave Water Agency for $73 million, that closed escrow just last month.
Like the last transfer, the storyline appears to be water is heading to thirsty Southland cities from desperate Westside farmers.
This time it's Irvine Ranch Water District that is considering the purchase of 880 acres of land in the Dudley Ridge Water District (DRWD) with the right to use up to 1,700 acre-feet of State Water Project Water on that same land, says district spokesperson Shannon Reed.
“At the present time, no commitment has been made by IRWD to purchase the land. However IRWD has an agreement with the current land owner that allows IRWD to evaluate the potential purchase.”
“If IRWD were to purchase the land, it would be continued to be farmed for a minimum of two years at which time a water transfer might be considered. Any such transfer would provide IRWD a more diversified and reliable water supply under drought conditions,” continued Reed.
Hope and a Prayer
The potential seller is the Jackson family who own several thousand acres in the 37,000-acre Dudley Ridge district along Interstate 5 south of Kettleman City. Steven Jackson, a third-generation farmer, said they don't see a bright future in this Westside tract. With no groundwater and the district's 17,000 acres of permanent crops choked off from adequate surface water supplies, Jackson said it isn't enough to keep farming here based “on a hope and a prayer.”
Like all the Dudley Ridge farmers,
the Jackson family has put in tens of millions of dollars in plantings,
infrastructure and improvements into an otherwise barren stretch of land
that used to grow tumbleweeds until the state water project came along.
But in recent years, “the rules have changed,” said Jackson
who has watched as state politics, environmental concerns and a federal
judge have changed the way water is delivered.
“I just talked with a state water official who told me water prices are set to triple and reliability is likely to go down too. It's just unsustainable.”
The latest blow to this windswept land was that Dudley Ridge could not even replenish a wet year groundwater bank in Kern County it helped set up because of a judge's ruling on pumping south of the Delta.
At issue is surplus water that can't be stored in any northern California reservoir and is destined to simply spill to the sea. The judge's ruling was that even in this case, the pumps could not be used to deliver this so-called Article 1 water, says the manager of Dudley Ridge, Dale Melville. “We have been told that it's going to be like that from now on,” he said. “They have eliminated 80 percent of the Article I water.”
Jackson says the ground water bank was the only way he kept his trees alive last year when the State Water Project delivered just 5 percent of its contracted supply. Now there is no future in the water bank either, he laments. “I've got to think about what future there is for my family here.”
'We're Toast'
With reduced water and tough margins,
Jackson says his family pushed over about 500 acres of tree fruit in the
past five years and they are down to about 1,500 acres.
Because of state politics, Jackson sees an unsustainable water supply
for the Westside in the future – not an easy pill to swallow for
farmers who look long term.
“Moving water from north to south will just get harder to do politically,”
he fears. “I told my family 'we're toast.'”
Kings County officials have shrugged
that water transfers from the state project are free market decisions
and locals can do little to stop them. “We have to be careful not
to call it our water,” admits Don Mills of the Kings County Water
District.
Indeed, Melville points out that the farmers in the district took the
risk themselves to get the contract to bring in water at their own expense,
making this part of Kings and Kern counties bloom, adding hundreds of
jobs and millions in economic benefits.
“If they lose the water, it will be shame, but you have to remember
it was imported water to begin with,” he said.
Nevertheless, the news has led to a backlash of concern that the county's declining water table and removal of surface water will mean more groundwater pumping in the area and sinking fortunes for farms there.
It's a case of urban users outbidding farm water users, most agree. Dudley Ridge property owners can sell their share of state water.
Some local farmers are circulating a petition to the board of supervisors to limit groundwater pumping on lands where surface water rights have been sold, as they do in Fresno County. The petition being circulated by Phillip Erro is gaining support, but Mills doesn't expect the board of supervisors to jump into the fray right now.
Instead, Mills is working on an idea
that could benefit the area by targeting the McCarthy Farms tract, next
to the land losing the state water, which could be sold and permanently
retired as farmland. With levees erected on the 25,000-acre tract, the
land could be used for a water storage reservoir in wet years, he said.
That would obviously remove fears of groundwater pumping on that same
land.
The Dudley Ridge board will take up the sale next month, but as of yet
it has taken no position on the transfer.
Irvine Ranch Water District (IRWD) is located in Orange County and serves a population of 330,000 in Irvine and portions of Tustin, Lake Forest, Newport Beach, Costa Mesa, city of Orange and unincorporated Orange County.
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