Some Welcome Change of Course in River Dispute

Two years ago, as Bruce Babbitt departed as Interior secretary for the Clinton administration, one of his proudest boasts was that he had forged a detente among the various feuding parties along the Colorado River.

“Crossing into the next century, we are gradually transforming our river of contention into what I would prefer to think of as a river of blissful cooperation,” Babbitt said in one of his last speeches to the Colorado River Water Users Assn.

Two years later, Colorado River issues appear headed back to the legal and political arena because of the failure of four California water agencies to meet a Dec. 31 deadline to establish terms for a farms-to-cities water sale.

On Friday, the Imperial Irrigation District sued the Bush administration and Babbitt’s successor, Gale Norton, to block a 7% cut in the water allocation to Imperial Valley farmers.

Earlier in the week, two state senators pledged to sponsor a bill to cut Valley farmers’ share of river water even further unless transfer terms are established.

But does that mean all is lost in the search for an equitable and lasting allocation of water from the river to seven Western states?

Not necessarily.

There are water watchers who -- some publicly, more privately -- concede that some head-banging in the courts or legislative halls might be helpful.

Even David Hayes, a top aide to Babbitt for Western water matters, said that it might take “a terribly messy litigation/legislation fight for a few months until hopefully sane voices” in the Imperial Valley say, “ ‘Hey, there’s got to be a better way,’ and return to the bargaining table.”

Irrigation district officials agree that litigation might help -- but for a different reason.

They want clarification on the issue of how much authority the federal government has to reduce allocations from the river and to force water deals.

In his latter years, Babbitt referred to himself as the “rivermaster,” a term the Bush administration has inherited.

The Imperial Irrigation District’s lawsuit, in effect, says the Bush administration has begun to take seriously the overblown rhetoric of its predecessor.

If the Interior Department “can take Imperial’s water rights away

Even the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, wholesalers to local agencies in six counties, agrees that negotiation might not be enough to rescue the deal for Imperial to sell 200,000 acre-feet of water a year -- enough for 1.6 million people -- to the San Diego County Water Authority.

The irrigation district approved a sale Dec. 31 but with last-minute conditions unacceptable to the MWD and the Department of Interior.

Ronald Gastelum, president and chief executive of the MWD, said the irrigation district may lack “the political will” to approve a sale because of deep-set opposition by some farmers and others who depend on the county’s agricultural economy.

Irrigation district officials see it differently.

They note that what began seven years ago as voluntary negotiations became a coercive demand to sell water, backed up by what they see as a trumped-up interpretation by the Bush administration of a 1979 court decree involving water use.

Using that decree, the Department of Interior announced Dec. 27 that the district is using 7% more water than it deserves and will lose that water without compensation unless it agrees to sell water to San Diego.

To irrigation district officials, Washington is using a false legal interpretation to enforce a policy meant to curry political favor with thirsty and vote-rich urban areas. Of such philosophic splits are court battles made.

“The people of the Imperial Valley will not be intimidated,” the president of the irrigation district’s board, Lloyd Allen, wrote to Norton. “Our forefathers worked too hard to create the most productive farm region in the world.

“We will not retreat from litigation to protect the lifeblood of our community.”