[env-trinity] IV Press: Westlands finds ways to deal with less water

[Tom Stokely]

http://www.ivpressonline.com/news/local/westlands-finds-ways-to-deal-with-leass-water/article_3d49cb8c-4dc6-11e3-8aba-0019bb30f31a.html 

Westlands finds ways to deal with less water
By ANTOINE ABOU-DIWAN, Staff Writer | Posted: Thursday, November 14, 2013 11:18 pm
If the Imperial Irrigation District’s water allocation and senior water rights place it in an enviable position, Westlands Water District’s situation is anything but.
Unlike the IID’s 3.1 million acre-feet of water, the WWD in central California is allocated 1.15 million acre-feet every year.
And, while the IID’s involvement in the nation’s largest agriculture to urban water transfer has been the cause of much alarm and litigation over the last 10 years, the WWD’s water allocation is currently a mere 20 percent of supply.
Deputy General Manager Jason Peltier discussed some of his agency’s challenges at Thursday’s water forum at the Barbara Worth Resort & Country Club in Holtville.
“Everything was great until the early ‘90s,” Peltier said.
But then, a host of statutes designed to protect endangered species and other environmental concerns went into effect, severing the link between hydrology and available water.
Nowadays, “With normal hydrology we could end up with significant shortages,” he said.
A lot of farmland was taken out of production to cope with an unreliable water supply, he said.
The WWD bought 100,000 acres of farmland and left it fallow.
The WWD instituted a water apportionment plan whereby water is divided uniformly.
The cheapest water that the WWD gets is from the Central Valley Project at $150 per acre-foot, Peltier said.
A water bank was created to allow farmers to trade water between each other. The price of that water is about $400 per acre-foot, he said.
And, there was a tremendous investment in irrigation management.
Eighty percent of the WWD’s acreage uses drip or micro-irrigation, Peltier said.
“We’re, today, producing about twice the amount of food and fiber that we did 20 years ago with the same amount of water,” he said.
Staff Writer Antoine Abou-Diwan can be reached at 760-337-3454 or aabou-diwan at ivpressonline.com
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