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Water deliveries cut for Westlands

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on June 7, 2008 at 10:48 am

From the Capital Ag Press:

Things want from bad to worse almost overnight. Already facing rationing of surface water, Westlands Water District growers learned this week that the Bureau of Reclamation would further reduce water deliveries this season, leaving growers to decide which of their crops they will save.

At a meeting June 2 at the Los Banos fairgrounds, about 400 anxious farmers listened to Bureau officials outline the federal water delivery outlook for the next six months, a time when multiple high-dollar crops are already in the ground. They said water allocations from the San Joaquin Delta would be cut to 40 percent, down from the 45 percent announced earlier. With water supplies drying up, crops that have been staples for westside growers - including cotton and lettuce - may be abandoned this year to conserve scarce water for permanent crops such as almonds.

There was also a call for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to declare a state of emergency. The governor did declare a drought on June 4, but stopped short of an emergency declaration.

“Half the people in this room are gong to go broke,” predicted Westlands general manager Tom Birmingham at the meeting. Westlands, the state’s largest water district at 600,000 acres, announced last week that water would be rationed throughout the summer for the first time in the history of the district.

Westlands Water District analysis shows the area needs 350,000 acre-feet of water, but can only expect 240,000 acre-feet from the Central Valley Project, and some of that won’t be delivered until September.

Fresno County Supervisor Phil Larson, who is also a grape grower, said he received a call about the Westlands rationing decision May 30 when he was having a cup of coffee with other farmers at the local welding shop. “There was silence,” he said, when they heard the news. Westlands, which provides about $1 billion worth of the crops in the state, won’t be the only district affected, Larson predicted. “If the water leaves here, it’s going to go away on the east side, too, and up north. We’re all in this together,” he said.

John Davis, assistant district director for the bureau said the Central Valley Project has lost complete flexibility this year. The state needs to relax water quality standards in the delta and the bureau is also looking at water transfers to alleviate some of the shortages.

Ron Milligan, operations manager for the Central Valley Project, acknowledged the economic, social and environmental issues involved the water shortage. The water picture significantly changed in April, he said, when officials saw the low carryover numbers. The State Water Project reported its lowest carryover since 1977, Milligan said. The lower start-off points mean lower allocations. “We’re in circumstances that are very unusual. We’ve never seen this with all the regulations on top,” Milligan said.