http://www.bakersfield.com/News-sections/take-our-river-back/2010/05/06/lois-henry-selling-water-out-of-kern-is-drought-protection.html
As the fight over forfeited Kern River water has heated up, Buena Vista Water District has come out swinging — hard.
Which is interesting for a number of reasons.
One, because Buena Vista’s rights aren’t in question. The water that may be up for grabs is First Point water and flood waters. Buena Vista has rock solid rights to Second Point water.
And two, because while Buena Vista officials have decried the very idea of running that forfeited water down the river saying the loss to local farmers now using it would be devastating, the district has been selling 11,000 acre feet a year, backed by its own Kern River supply, to Castaic Lake Water Agency for $550 an acre foot to support homes and businesses hundreds of miles away.
And it may be positioning itself for even more such sales.
As to the Castaic sale, General Manager Dan Bartel explained that the district banks much of its river water and uses its state supplies to fulfill the Castaic contract.
If that state supply gets low enough, though, Buena Vista must meet that Castaic obligation and that means Kern River water will go over the Grapevine.
“We could potentially have to pump water out for Castaic,” Bartel said.
Such sales, Bartel and other water district officials say, benefit locals by helping pay for facilities to better use water here and by keeping costs low to farmers, who can then keep more jobs filled or more land in production. The trickle down theory.
In Buena Vista, costs to members are low, going from a per acre assessment of $38 10 years ago to $20 now.
But that’s not the whole picture.
Water use dropping
According to an environmental impact report on several new projects planned for the district, water use has dropped in Buena Vista as cropping patterns have changed and more owners have taken land out of production putting it under wildlife conservation easements.
Water use peaked in the mid-1970s at 113,000 acre feet a year and has steadily declined to an average of 99,500 acre feet a year, according to the environmental report.
The projects include groundwater banking to capture and recover high flow Kern River water (these are flood waters that exceed Buena Vista’s regular allotment of river water), land acquisition and a new turnout in the California Aqueduct.
The environmental document also says Buena Vista has a positive groundwater balance.
So, Buena Vista has good ground water, solid Kern River rights and less in-district demand.
All those factors make it seem as though Buena Vista is gearing up to market more of its water out of the county.
Given state supplies are sketchy (it only received 13,000 acre feet of its contracted 21,300 acre feet last year), that leaves the banked Kern River water as Buena Vista’s strongest asset.
That is not the intent of the program, Bartel said. They just want to manage their water more efficiently, he said.
Besides, the relatively few number of wells included in the banking operation mean it could never pull water out on the scale of say Kern Water Bank, which can suck hundreds of thousands of acre feet a year out of Kern’s ground. By comparison, Buena Vista’s project would only be able to recover 10,000 to 15,000 acre feet a year.
But, yes, he acknowledged, the new facilities could lead to more out-of-county sales. And yes, that could mean Kern River water.
“That’s not our intent, in fact I hadn’t even thought about the water going out of county,” Bartel said. “But these days everybody is trying to put whatever water resources they have to the best value.”
Sales just another tool
The Kern River is one of the most variable rivers in the state, overflowing one year and dead dry the next. Harvesting as much flood water as possible is good whether local farmers get it or it’s sold out of county and the money used to improve water management locally, he said.
“It’s drought protection,” Bartel said of the district’s projects.
Eric Averett, general manager of the Rosedale-Rio Bravo Water Storage District, which also sells water to developers and others out of the county, agreed with Bartel.
Sales make sense if they benefit the district, such as providing money to build more facilities to capture more water.
Rosedale’s contract with Coachella Valley developer Glorious Land Company gives the developer between 1,300 and 1,500 acre feet a year for the next 30 years, escalating each year as the development is built out.
What happens at the end of that 30 years?
“They have to extend the contract or find water somewhere else,” Averett said.
He had no concerns that such long-term sales to hard water needs could eventually result in the permanent loss of local water.
Bartel said selling water out of county may seem counterintuitive when there’s so much talk about the need for water locally. But it’s not necessarily bad as long as it’s done on a term basis.
“It’s short-sighted for any district to sell their water rights,” he said.
Term contracts though, even 30 or more years, are a wise way to use excess water.
He compared it to the City of Bakersfield selling water to local ag districts under 35-year contracts to pay off the bonds they used to buy the water rights.
“If they hadn’t been able to contract that water out, they wouldn’t have been able to buy the rights.”
The big difference, of course, is the city sold the water to local districts, keeping it in our groundwater basin. When it reverts back to the city, its policy is it will never be sold or transferred out of the county.
Mystery on the river
When it comes to sales, apparently, it’s all “just business” for Bartel and other water district officials.
But Buena Vista’s reaction to the city’s position on the 50,000 acre feet of forfeited water seems much more personal.
Bartel has said his fear is the State Water Resources Control Board, which is deciding the fate of the forfeiture water, could tinker with other rights on the river.
In its environmental documents, however, Buena Vista states that the forfeiture water issue would, in no way, affect its own supplies.
The 50,000 acre feet of forfeiture water popped up after a court found that an upstream district had lost some of its river rights for lack of use. The matter was taken to the state water board where the city and four other districts — including Buena Vista — petitioned to have the river deemed not fully appropriated. Each entity also applied to get that water.
Even so, Bartel singled out the city as the bad guy.
“The city is the only one looking to open up the river,” Bartel insisted.
And “opening up the river” is clearly something that unnerves Bartel and the other districts.
As Bartel said in response to an explanation that this series would attempt to take the mystery out of the Kern River:
“When it comes to the river, mystery is a good thing.”