Water Saved Is Water Earned?

(Originally posted on waterefficiency.net)

By Elizabeth Cutright
Editor
Water Efficiency

This week, the online edition of the Desert Sun ran a news item on a surprise announcement by the Imperial Irrigation District and the Coachella Valley Water District—two of California’s biggest users of Colorado River water allotments. Turns out, both districts estimate that they will be need a significantly smaller amount of water this year than originally projected—the smallest amount, in fact, since they were required to track their use by the 2003 Quantitative Settlement Agreement (QSA).
The news couldn’t have come at a better time for Los Angeles. Under the QSA, customers in the Los Angeles area (about 19 million) are entitled to any water left over from unused agricultural supplies in the Imperial Irrigation District and the Coachella Valley Water District. In Los Angeles, this water windfall will not only help ease mandatory water restrictions, it will also go a long way towards replenishing the area’s water storage supply.
As is always the case in California, the announcement spurred controversy— specifically over how the water savings were achieved. Agricultural interests in Imperial and Coachella claimed that successful conservation and efficiency programs had created the surplus. But skeptics point to the weakened economy and its effect on California’s ag industry (smaller crop yields, diminished demand) as the real culprit. These warring claims have a significance—under the QSA farmers are supposed to receive funds to aid in the implementation of water conservation efforts, funds that could help farmers sustain themselves during these lean times. Without that funding, some farmers claim there is little incentive to conserve water.
In California the push-pull relationship between rural and urban water users seems never ending—one group always feels any conservation on their part leaves them at a disadvantage while unfairly benefiting the other side. What do you think? Should conservation efforts be incentive-based? Do the farmers in California’s central valley have a point? Or is the solution to look beyond the water-as-commodity paradi