Columns

Mexican farmers experience fight over scarce water
BY TERRY ROSS
Published on: February 22, 2006

The battle of Mexican farmers and environmentalists to stop a water conservation plan for the All American Canal near Yuma is symbolic of the water issues that this arid part of the nation will increasingly be facing.

A federal judge dismissed most of a lawsuit this week that sought to stop the lining of a section of the huge irrigation canal to prevent water from seeping into the ground. The Imperial Valley Irrigation District estimates that about 67,000 acre feet of water is lost each year due to seepage along the 23-mile section of the canal west of Yuma.

Many travelers who drive west into California from Yuma probably give little attention to the large canal they cross, but it is the reason the arid Imperial Valley has 700 square miles of irrigated farmland. The canal was authorized in 1928 and completed in 1942 to take water from the Colorado River and deliver it to farmers in the Imperial Valley.
An incidental benefit of the canal, however, is now at the heart of efforts to stop the irrigation district from saving water lost to seepage. Because the canal is unlined, some of the water soaks down into the ground and eventual ends up in aquifers from which farmers a few miles south in Mexico draw water for their crops.

Once the canal is lined — and that could be as soon as two years from now if work proceeds in the wake of the judge’s ruling — those aquifers will begin to dry up and with them the livelihoods of the Mexican farmers, some who have been raising crops there for generations.

The needs of these farmers, however, compete with the needs of people in San Diego. The water saved from lining the canal will help supply water to that thirsty urban area under a California water agreement which takes water from Imperial Valley farmers to supply water-short city residents.

This conflict of interests between agriculture and urban areas is one that is being played out throughout the Southwest, much of which is very arid and has limited availability of water. Once fertile areas of California have been turned into deserts in order to supply water to Los Angeles and other cities.
The same conflict in our state and could eventually impact our own community because of its large allocation of irrigation water from the Colorado River, although we are fortunate to have some of the earliest water rights on the river.

In the end, however, water policies are decided by elected representatives and urban areas have many more votes than rural agricultural areas. It is a danger that cannot be ignored.

The farmers in Mexico are learning a hard lesson about water policies in America. Their best chance for survival may be to work out an agreement where they pay for needed water rather than getting free use of seepage — assuming there is enough "extra" water to be sold to them.

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Terry Ross is editor of The Sun. E-mail him at tross@yumasun.com or phone 539-6870. His Editor’s Notebook blog can be read at www.yumasun.com/blogs



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