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U.S. Approves Water Plan in California, but Environmental Opposition Remains August 31, 2002 By DOUGLAS JEHL With California facing a year-end federal deadline to reduce its dependence on Colorado River water, the Interior Department has given its go-ahead to a $1 billion, 50-year plan to store and pump water from beneath private land in the Mojave Desert. The Bush administration's decision removes a major obstacle to the project, proposed by a private company, Cadiz Inc., to help the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California make up future water shortfalls. The plan still faces opposition, which has been led by Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, on environmental grounds. It has not yet been approved by the water district's board. Still, as the state scrambles to line up new water sources before the deadline, the ruling has given new life to the Cadiz project. The project is one of several unconventional options on the table, including a proposal by the City of San Diego to pay tens of millions of dollars to farmers in the Imperial Valley so the Colorado water to which they are entitled can go to urban users instead. The reason for the scramble is a multistate agreement from 1999 that requires California to reduce its overuse of Colorado River water, which now exceeds the state's allocation by 20 percent. With neighboring states like Nevada and Arizona now using up the allocations they once allowed to flow downstream, California's water managers are weighing hard choices, including whether to go forward with the Cadiz project, which Senator Feinstein has called a danger to the desert aquifer and the desert ecology it supports. The Interior Department ruling, announced on Wednesday, rejected such challenges, saying that a plan drawn up by Cadiz, the water district and several federal agencies would be sufficient to prevent environmental damage. "We believe that the management plan, which is based on science and a strong monitoring program, will assure the necessary protection of the natural resources for which we are responsible," said Rebecca Watson, assistant secretary of interior for land and minerals management. In a further blow to environmentalists, the ruling put no limit on the amount of water that could be pumped annually from the aquifer. A spokeswoman for Cadiz, Wendy Mitchell, called the ruling "a positive step forward, and another milestone reached." But Senator Feinstein, who is trying to block the project through legislation that is soon to reach the Senate floor, said through a spokesman that she "continues to have serious concerns about this project." A spokesman for the water district, Adan Ortega Jr., said the board would next take up the issue on Sept. 17. The district's staff had not made a recommendation on whether the project should proceed, Mr. Ortega said. As proposed by Cadiz, and tentatively embraced by the water district, the aquifer would serve two purposes. One would be as a source of new, native water for Southern California, by pumping from a previously untapped underground reservoir. The other would be for the storage of Colorado River water, to be piped into the aquifer from an aqueduct more than 30 miles away, during years when rainfall or political agreements give California a surplus. The threat facing California falls most directly on the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which gets more than half of its water from the Colorado, and in serving 17 million people in six counties routinely accounts for the bulk of the state's overuse. Unless the state can show by Dec. 31 that it is preparing to scale back its use of Colorado water over the next 15 years, to 4.4 million acre feet a year, the Interior Department has warned that it will immediately cut off the amount now being drawn in excess, about 800,000 acre feet a year, or enough to provide for 1.6 million households. The central element in the state's effort to find new supplies is the San Diego plan, in which water authorities in the county, which is part of the Southern California water district, are trying to buy up Colorado River water rights held by farmers in the arid Imperial Valley, about 80 miles to the east. A 75-year water transfer agreement the city signed with the Imperial Irrigation District in 1998 had foundered on concerns about environmental damage to the Salton Sea, an enormous saline lake that depends on agricultural runoff. But in the last week, San Diego has sweetened the pot, offering an additional $165 million over the next 15 years if farmers agreed to take about 10 percent of their land out of production. That plan would ultimately allow 200,000 acre feet of irrigation water to be transferred to the city but would delay initial water transfers for five years to allow state and federal agencies to find ways to protect the lake. The proposal, described by the water authority as "a monumental step forward," has not yet been approved, but it appeared to address the main complaints that have been raised by Imperial Valley farmers and environmental organizations. But it is the Mojave deal, pressed forward by Keith Brackpool, Cadiz's chief executive and a confidant of California's governor, Gray Davis, a Democrat, that has aroused more controversy. One reason is that it would involve heavy reliance on Cadiz, which owns the land above the aquifer, an area the size of Rhode Island in eastern San Bernardino County, but has never turned a profit. The water district would pay the company for each acre foot of water pumped from the aquifer, and with its customers would bear a substantial burden of the initial $150 million in construction costs to link the aquifer to an aqueduct more than 30 miles away. Another reason for controversy is uncertainty about how much so-called native water the aquifer might produce. The water district has said it will not withdraw more than can be naturally recharged, and while estimates have varied widely, some scientists have said the natural recharge rate may be so slow as to render the aquifer all but useless as anything more than a storage site for any excess Colorado River water, which is likely to become increasingly scarce. A third reason is concern about the effect on the desert, where activists led by Elden Hughes, chairman of the California Desert Committee at the Sierra Club, are warning of environmental disaster. Mr. Hughes and others have said that any drawing down of the aquifer could leave bighorn sheep without water, contribute to monumental dust storms and harm the California desert tortoise, a federally protected species. "The project is a bad project, and it will scar the land and take centuries to heal," Mr. Hughes said in a telephone interview today. "They say that the monitoring and management plan will answer all the concerns, and it doesn't." The Interior Department's review of the project, on environmental grounds, was necessary because the connection between the water district's aqueduct and the existing aquifer would cross federal land. In rejecting the environmental challenges, it cited decisions like one issued in April by the Fish and Wildlife Service, which said that the project "is not likely to jeopardize the continued existence" of the desert tortoise. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/31/politics/31WATE.html?ex=1031799216&ei=1&en=a1ed5e711a876164 HOW TO ADVERTISE --------------------------------- For information on advertising in e-mail newsletters or other creative advertising opportunities with The New York Times on the Web, please contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] or visit our online media kit at http://www.nytimes.com/adinfo For general information about NYTimes.com, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance�not soap-boxing�please! 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