Decades-old water dispute nears end

NORTH COUNTY — Glacially-paced litigation over rights to the waters of the San Luis Rey River is about to finally come to an end.

More than 45 years after five North County Indian tribes filed suit against two water agencies and the U.S. Government for having diverted 90 percent of the water flowing through the San Luis Rey, a settlement agreement has been signed by all the parties.

All that now remains is for the deal to be approved by Congress early next year.

The dispute began more than a century ago when rights to the river water were signed over by the federal government to what is now known as the Vista Irrigation District and the City of Escondido. The local tribes relied on the San Luis Rey water to supply their land.

The situation worsened by the 1920s, when 90 percent of the water in the river was diverted by dams and transported via canals and pipes to Vista and Escondido. The water made farming in far off valleys possible but left the tribes mostly dry.

In 1969, the tribes sued, saying their rights were violated by the illegal taking of the river water.

After decades of litigation, in 1988, an agreement was reached and Congress enacted the “San Luis Rey Indian Water Rights Settlement Act” which recognized the need to provide a supplemental water supply for the benefit of the tribes. The deal stipulated that 16,000 acre feet of water — roughly the amount of water being diverted from the river — should be made available to the tribes annually. The problem was figuring out how.

“Nobody knew it would take 20 years to find that water,” said Bo Mazzetti, chairman of the Rincon Band of Luiseño Indians, one of the affected tribes. The others are La Jolla, Pala, Pauma and San Pasqual.

A breakthrough came in the mid and late 2000s when parts of the All-American Canal — which brings water from the Colorado River to Imperial County — were lined to stop about 100,000 acre feet of water from seeping into the ground annually.

A way had finally been discovered to guarantee supplemental water.

The final agreement, signed last Friday during a ceremony on the San Pasqual reservation, calls for 16,000 acre feet of water to be dedicated each year for use by the tribes.

Because there’s no pipeline to carry water from the canal directly to the tribes, it will be used to offset extra water the tribes pull from the San Luis Rey.

The deal was nearly derailed five years ago, when the federal government said it wanted the tribes to waive any future claims to water rights. The tribes rejected the provision saying the agreement dealt only with the waters of the San Luis Rey and they weren’t going to give up future rights to other water sources that might be disputed. The government eventually backed down and in 2012 the current agreement was solidified.

In the past few months, the U.S. Departments of Interior and Justice gave final approval leaving only Congressional approval to solidify the deal. It was hoped the settlement would be included as a rider to the Omnibus Appropriations Bill that was passed Thursday, but that deadline was missed.

“The good news is that we have a signed agreement, and full support from all the necessary federal staff all ready to go. Thus, we are set up to be on the suspension calendar or other legislation for approval in three weeks with the new session,” Escondido City Attorney Jeff Epp said this week.

“It was a long, slow mess,” Epp said, about the litigation.

Mazzetti said the thing that bothers him the most is that virtually all of the tribal leaders who began the quest to get the water back in the 1960s have passed away.

“They didn’t get to see it finished,” he said. “That’s the greatest disappointment. On the other hand, we finally got there. It’s been a long, long fight.”