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<h1>Westlands Irrigation District wields major clout in California water wars <o:p></o:p></h1>
<h1><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-weight:normal'>Mark Grossi <br>
Fresno Bee <o:p></o:p></span></h1>
<p class=MsoNormal>Published: Saturday, Nov. 21, 2009 - 12:00 am | Page 4A <o:p></o:p></p>
<p><b>The most powerful voices in the state's recent $11 billion water talks
might have been two <a href="http://topics.sacbee.com/water+districts/"><span
style='font-size:11.5pt;font-family:"Georgia","serif"'>water districts</span></a>
– one speaking for half the state's population and the other for just 600
San Joaquin Valley farmers.<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p><b>The negotiations led to legislation with the promise of epic change
– restoring dying fisheries, building dams and easing gridlock that has
dogged water system improvement for decades.<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p><b>It made sense that <a
href="http://topics.sacbee.com/Metropolitan+Water+District+of+Southern+California/"><span
style='font-size:11.5pt;font-family:"Georgia","serif"'>Metropolitan Water
District of Southern California,</span></a> which serves 19 million people,
would wield big political clout in those talks. But who are those 600 farmers? <o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p><b>They are customers in <a
href="http://topics.sacbee.com/Westlands+Water+District/"><span
style='font-size:11.5pt;font-family:"Georgia","serif"'>Westlands Water
District,</span></a> the country's largest federal irrigation <a
href="http://topics.sacbee.com/District/"><span style='font-size:11.5pt;
font-family:"Georgia","serif"'>district.</span></a> With crops worth $1 billion
a year, this one <a href="http://topics.sacbee.com/District/"><span
style='font-size:11.5pt;font-family:"Georgia","serif"'>district</span></a>
produces more than some whole states.<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p><b>The 600,000-acre Westlands – with a footprint twice the size of <a
href="http://topics.sacbee.com/Los+Angeles/"><span style='font-size:11.5pt;
font-family:"Georgia","serif"'>Los Angeles</span></a> – is no hayseed at
any bargaining table. For decades, politicos from <a
href="http://topics.sacbee.com/Sacramento/"><span style='font-size:11.5pt;
font-family:"Georgia","serif"'>Sacramento</span></a> to <a
href="http://topics.sacbee.com/Washington/"><span style='font-size:11.5pt;
font-family:"Georgia","serif"'>Washington,</span></a> D.C., have heard
regularly from Westlands. The <a href="http://topics.sacbee.com/District/"><span
style='font-size:11.5pt;font-family:"Georgia","serif"'>district's</span></a>
name appears on dozens of lawsuits. Any time there's an important statewide
discussion of <a href="http://topics.sacbee.com/water+supply/"><span
style='font-size:11.5pt;font-family:"Georgia","serif"'>water supply,</span></a>
Westlands is in the room.<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p><b>"This <a href="http://topics.sacbee.com/District/"><span
style='font-size:11.5pt;font-family:"Georgia","serif"'>district</span></a> is a
very influential player," said <a
href="http://topics.sacbee.com/Assemblyman+Jared+Huffman/"><span
style='font-size:11.5pt;font-family:"Georgia","serif"'>Assemblyman Jared
Huffman,</span></a> <a href="http://topics.sacbee.com/D-San+Rafael/"><span
style='font-size:11.5pt;font-family:"Georgia","serif"'>D-San Rafael.</span></a><o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p><b>Westlands is protecting its farmers, who have been losing water to
environmental reform efforts since the 1990s and idling land because of soil
contamination since the 1980s. This farming giant is in a slow-motion
transition, struggling to turn the next page in a 57-year history.<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p><b>The <a href="http://topics.sacbee.com/District/"><span style='font-size:
11.5pt;font-family:"Georgia","serif"'>district's</span></a> past is filled with
powerful families – Giffen, Diener, Harris and Boswell – who carved
success with sweat, guile and groundwater in west Fresno and Kings counties.<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p><b>When they tapped into <a
href="http://topics.sacbee.com/Northern+California/"><span style='font-size:
11.5pt;font-family:"Georgia","serif"'>Northern California</span></a> river
water on the federal <a href="http://topics.sacbee.com/Central+Valley+Project/"><span
style='font-size:11.5pt;font-family:"Georgia","serif"'>Central Valley Project</span></a>
in the 1960s, they made enemies. Now those north-state enemies blame Westlands
for trashing the ecosystem and ruining the salmon fishing industry. They say
the <a href="http://topics.sacbee.com/District/"><span style='font-size:11.5pt;
font-family:"Georgia","serif"'>district</span></a> takes too much water from
the <a href="http://topics.sacbee.com/Sacramento/"><span style='font-size:11.5pt;
font-family:"Georgia","serif"'>Sacramento</span></a>-San Joaquin Delta.<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p><b>They call Westlands a litigious maverick, a greedy agribusiness and an
abuser of federal subsidies. Some suggest Westlands should die off and
eliminate one of the many water consumers in <a
href="http://topics.sacbee.com/California/"><span style='font-size:11.5pt;
font-family:"Georgia","serif"'>California.</span></a><o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p><b>"We should never have allowed farming out there," said <a
href="http://topics.sacbee.com/Bill+Jennings/"><span style='font-size:11.5pt;
font-family:"Georgia","serif"'>Bill Jennings,</span></a> chairman of the <a
href="http://topics.sacbee.com/California+Sport+Fishing+Alliance/"><span
style='font-size:11.5pt;font-family:"Georgia","serif"'>California Sport Fishing
Alliance,</span></a> based in <a href="http://topics.sacbee.com/Stockton/"><span
style='font-size:11.5pt;font-family:"Georgia","serif"'>Stockton.</span></a>
"I think we can solve a lot of <a
href="http://topics.sacbee.com/California/"><span style='font-size:11.5pt;
font-family:"Georgia","serif"'>California's</span></a> water problems by buying
Westlands farmland and taking it out of production."<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<h3>Which Westlands?<o:p></o:p></h3>
<p><b>Farmer <a href="http://topics.sacbee.com/Dan+Errotabere/"><span
style='font-size:11.5pt;font-family:"Georgia","serif"'>Dan Errotabere,</span></a>
a Westlands board member whose family has been on the west side since before
the Great Depression, chuckles when he hears critics call him a millionaire with
big political muscles.<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p><b>"If that were true, why wouldn't we have more success at getting the
water we need?" he asked.<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p><b>But critics say Westlands more often than not gets its way.<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p><b>Westlands quickly goes to federal court when confronted with a roadblock,
said <a href="http://topics.sacbee.com/Tom+Stokely/"><span style='font-size:
11.5pt;font-family:"Georgia","serif"'>Tom Stokely,</span></a> a member of the
nonprofit environmental group <a
href="http://topics.sacbee.com/California+Water+Impact+Network/"><span
style='font-size:11.5pt;font-family:"Georgia","serif"'>California Water Impact
Network.</span></a> And lately, it has been winning more often than not.<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p><b>For instance, Westlands sued over a federal biological study that
resulted in a 25 percent loss of the <a
href="http://topics.sacbee.com/District/"><span style='font-size:11.5pt;
font-family:"Georgia","serif"'>district's</span></a> federal supply this year,
forcing further consideration.<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p><b>"They're a big bully with lots of money to sue people," said
Stokely, a former Trinity County planner based in Northern <a
href="http://topics.sacbee.com/California/"><span style='font-size:11.5pt;
font-family:"Georgia","serif"'>California.</span></a><o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p><b>Westlands' reputation for hiring the best lawyers and filing many
lawsuits comes partly from the 1980s when its well-known irrigation drainage
problem worsened.<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p><b>A clay layer beneath the soil prevents irrigation water from sinking far
on thousands of Westlands' acres. Minerals build up and eventually poison the
land.<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p><b>As a solution in the late 1970s and 1980s, federal officials piped
drainage water from Westlands to Kesterson Reservoir in western <a
href="http://topics.sacbee.com/Merced+County/"><span style='font-size:11.5pt;
font-family:"Georgia","serif"'>Merced County.</span></a> Scientists later
discovered the drainage was toxic after it killed or disfigured shorebirds and
other animals.<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p><b>Federal officials stopped drainage to Kesterson in 1985. Then, legal
actions began as officials sorted out how to deal with the dirty water. The
solution has eluded authorities, the dirty water remains and drainage issues
are still in court. <o:p></o:p></b></p>
<h3>Benefits for the public<o:p></o:p></h3>
<p><b>Only farmers have reaped the benefits from the investment of public money
in Westlands, one environmentalist contends.<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p><b>Fresno lawyer <a href="http://topics.sacbee.com/Lloyd+Carter/"><span
style='font-size:11.5pt;font-family:"Georgia","serif"'>Lloyd Carter,</span></a>
a deputy state attorney general and longtime Westlands critic, wrote in the <a
href="http://topics.sacbee.com/Golden+Gate+University+Environmental+Law+Journal/"><span
style='font-size:11.5pt;font-family:"Georgia","serif"'>Golden Gate University
Environmental Law Journal</span></a> this month that over several decades
taxpayers have invested more than $1 billion in everything from canal
construction to crop subsidies for this district.<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p><b>But residents of Fresno and Kings counties have little to show for it, he
concluded.<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p><b>Westlands officials reply that farming has created thousands of jobs on
the west side and is the basis for many spinoff businesses, such as <a
href="http://topics.sacbee.com/food+processing/"><span style='font-size:11.5pt;
font-family:"Georgia","serif"'>food processing.</span></a><o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p><b>Another prominent critic of Westlands is Rep. <a
href="http://topics.sacbee.com/George+Miller/"><span style='font-size:11.5pt;
font-family:"Georgia","serif"'>George Miller,</span></a> D-Martinez, who
co-wrote a 1992 irrigation reform law that provided more water for the state's
ecosystem. Westlands and other federal farm contractors lost 35 percent to 50
percent of their Northern California irrigation water in the process.<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p><b>Miller has said Westlands represents a privileged group of farmers who
bought cheap land and got rich by using federally subsidized water to grow
subsidized cotton.<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p><b>Rep. <a href="http://topics.sacbee.com/Jim+Costa/"><span
style='font-size:11.5pt;font-family:"Georgia","serif"'>Jim Costa,</span></a>
D-Fresno, disagrees, saying much has changed in the last 20 years. Westlands
farmers are largely out of the cotton business and now pay full price for
federal water. He said Westlands' family farms are a critical part of Fresno
County agriculture, which leads the nation in <a
href="http://topics.sacbee.com/farm+production/"><span style='font-size:11.5pt;
font-family:"Georgia","serif"'>farm production.</span></a><o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p><b>"It would be a tragedy and a blow to national security if we did not
have Westlands," Costa said.<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<h3>On the farm<o:p></o:p></h3>
<p><b>With the passage of state reform legislation, Westlands officials say
there is a clear path to building the canals and reservoirs that could bring
more water to west side farms. But it will take years, and there are no
assurances.<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p><b>Back on the farm, things look grim. The three-year drought, irrigation
water cutbacks to protect Delta fish and drainage problems have knocked out of
production 260,000 acres – more than 40 percent of Westlands land.<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p><b>Growers aren't giving up. They've spent millions of dollars on drip-irrigation
systems. Water-intensive flood irrigation – filling furrows with <a
href="http://topics.sacbee.com/river+water/"><span style='font-size:11.5pt;
font-family:"Georgia","serif"'>river water</span></a> – has largely been
abandoned, said farmer and board member Errotabere.<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p><b>"Water is expensive, and we don't have enough of it," he said.
"It has always been that way around here." <o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><i><span style='font-size:12.0pt;color:gray'>Byron
Leydecker, JcT</span></i><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><i><span style='font-size:12.0pt;color:gray'>Chair, Friends
of Trinity River</span></i><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><i><span style='font-size:12.0pt;color:gray'>PO Box 2327</span></i><span
style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><i><span style='font-size:12.0pt;color:gray'>Mill Valley, CA
94942-2327</span></i><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><i><span style='font-size:12.0pt;color:gray'>415 383 4810
land</span></i><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><i><span style='font-size:12.0pt;color:gray'>415 519 4810
cell</span></i><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p>
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