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Water Summit works through cutback woes: Growers must decide between lower deliveries, discounts

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on November 28, 2008 at 8:37 am

From Capital Press:

Water is getting harder to come by in San Diego County, and growers are struggling to find answers on how to cope. The problem has been created by drought, court orders, new environmental regulations and water supply decisions. “This water situation isn’t short-term,” said Ken Roth, chairman of the California Avocado Commission’s Southern California Agricultural Water Team. “We will have to work with this situation for a while.”

San Diego County agriculture is among the most water-intensive in the nation. High-value nursery crops - citrus and avocados - require large water allotments. Most irrigating water comes from Northern California via canals.

San Diego growers had been getting up to 30 percent discounts from the regional Metropolitan Water District of Southern California that distributes water to SoCal water districts. The flip side of that program was a pledge by growers to take cuts of up to 40 percent of their water allotment should the resource become scarce.

Nearly three years of drought and small snowpacks have pulled water out of the system for farmers and city dwellers alike, felt all the more harshly in San Diego with its dry conditions and urban population. A federal judge’s recent ruling in favor of the endangered delta smelt also affects supplies.

“We can’t underestimate the impact of the drought the last few years; that represented about two-thirds of the impact and the judge’s ruling affecting the other third,” said Michael Hurley, principal water resources manager at Malcolm Pirnie Environmental Inc.