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Palo Verde farmers to fallow 26,000 acres of farmland under Metropolitan’s water transfer deal

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on March 30, 2008 at 11:02 am

From the Riverside Press-Enterprise:

Thirsty Southern California cities are turning to water-rich farmers on the eastern edge of Riverside County for additional supplies to make up for the ongoing drought and other restrictions on the life-sustaining resource.

Starting this summer, farmers in the Palo Verde Valley along the Colorado River will forgo planting crops on nearly 26,000 acres, the most land yet under a little-known fallowing agreement with Metropolitan Water District. The pact will double the amount now being sent to MWD and its 18 million urban customers.

In exchange, MWD will pay the farmers $16.8 million each year for 115,000 acre-feet of water — almost 37.5 billion gallons. That’s on top of startup fees the district has already paid the farmers, making it more costly than the water the district traditionally relies on from the Colorado River and the Sacramento Delta.

Metropolitan Water District has to notify the farmers a year in advance of their request for more water, and that decision was made after the Wanger smelt decision in August:

The region, he said, will still be short of water. MWD is projecting a 300,000-acre-foot loss from the Delta decision, and the Palo Verde transfer accounts for only about one-third of that. But MWD officials said the injection of new supplies will help prevent the water district from drawing even more on its stored reserves in such places as Diamond Valley Lake near Hemet.

Read the rest of this story from Riverside’s Press-Enterprise by clicking here.

For a fact sheet from Metropolitan Water District on the Palo Verde water transfer deal, click here.

March 30, 2008 · Filed Under Agriculture, Water Transfers