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<p><span class=headline><b><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:14.0pt;font-weight:bold'>New Players Emerge in Western Water
War</span></font></b></span><b><font size=4><span style='font-size:14.0pt;
font-weight:bold'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span class=byline><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'><a
href="http://www.agweekly.com/articles/2006/01/16/news/updates/update01.txt">http://www.agweekly.com/articles/2006/01/16/news/updates/update01.txt</a>
<o:p></o:p></span></font></span></p>
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style='font-size:12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span class=byline><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-size:12.0pt'>By Juliet Eilperin, The <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:State
w:st="on">Washington</st1:State></st1:place> Post</span></font></span><br>
<span class=timestamp>Monday, January 16, 2006 6:21 PM CST</span><o:p></o:p></p>
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<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>BIG SKY, <st1:State
w:st="on">Mont.</st1:State> -- A hundred years after the city of <st1:City
w:st="on">Los Angeles</st1:City> and San Fernando Valley farmers battled
neighboring <st1:PlaceName w:st="on">Owens</st1:PlaceName> <st1:PlaceType
w:st="on">Valley</st1:PlaceType> for control over water from the <st1:place
w:st="on">Owens River</st1:place>, there's a new kind of water war in the West.<br>
<br>
>From <st1:State w:st="on">Montana</st1:State> to <st1:State w:st="on">Arizona</st1:State>
to <st1:State w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">California</st1:place></st1:State>
and beyond, alliances of environmentalists, fishermen and city dwellers are
challenging the West's traditional water barons -- farmers and ranchers -- who
have long controlled the increasingly scarce resource. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>The West
largely depends on its rivers and snowmelt for its water supply, and a
combination of recent urban growth and prolonged drought has resulted in demand
greatly outstripping supply. Under longstanding federal and state policies
reinforced by farmers' historic political clout, agriculture has laid claim to
about 80 percent of those scant resources -- at rock-bottom prices -- on the
grounds that water is critical to the survival of crops and livestock.<br>
<br>
Now, however, other users are arguing that this system is unfair, uneconomical
and a threat to many delicate ecosystems, and not only in the West.<br>
<br>
Farmers typically pay less for their water than nearby cities: In California's <st1:place
w:st="on">Central Valley</st1:place>, they get their water from the federal
government at below-market prices, a subsidy that amounts to $416 million a
year, according to the Environmental Working Group, an advocacy organization.
And unlike cities getting the same water, farmers are paying back the cost of
the region's giant irrigation system without interest.<br>
<br>
In areas such as the Pacific Northwest's <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:PlaceName
w:st="on">Klamath</st1:PlaceName> <st1:PlaceType w:st="on">River Basin</st1:PlaceType></st1:place>,
commercial fishermen and Indian tribes say agriculture is depriving them of the
water they need to maintain the local salmon fishery and a way of life.<br>
<br>
Near <st1:City w:st="on">Yuma</st1:City>, <st1:State w:st="on">Ariz.</st1:State>,
alfalfa and cotton farmers in the Wellton-Mohawk Irrigation and Drainage
District are concerned that the rapid growth of <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">Phoenix</st1:place></st1:City> will threaten their water rights.
"There's fear," said Robert Glennon, a <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:PlaceType
w:st="on">University</st1:PlaceType> of <st1:PlaceName w:st="on">Arizona</st1:PlaceName></st1:place>
professor of law and public policy. Steve Owens of the state's Department of
Environmental Quality sees water conservation as "probably the number-one
environmental issue" facing the state.<br>
<br>
Such battles have spread nationwide as groups from <st1:State w:st="on">Florida</st1:State>
to <st1:State w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Nebraska</st1:place></st1:State>
squabble over farmers' voracious water use, but nowhere are the stakes higher
than in the fast-growing West. Rivers and streams there occupy just 5 percent
of the land but sustain nearly half of the fish and wildlife species.<br>
<br>
In the past, when the competition for water was less intense, Western cities
often cut deals with agricultural interests to build massive projects to supply
both. But rapidly growing municipal needs -- the West is now home to nine of
the 10 fastest-growing metropolitan areas -- mean urban areas now are in direct
competition with ranchers and farmers.<br>
<br>
"To me, this is deja vu all over again," said John Vincent, a
commissioner in <st1:State w:st="on">Montana</st1:State>'s <st1:PlaceName
w:st="on">Gallatin</st1:PlaceName> <st1:PlaceType w:st="on">County</st1:PlaceType>
who served for 16 years in the state legislature and two years as <st1:City
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Bozeman</st1:place></st1:City>'s mayor.
"It's a new phase of the water wars. The players have changed."<br>
<br>
In some cases, such as Big Sky's Poorman Creek, compromise turned out to be
easy. <st1:State w:st="on">Montana</st1:State> rancher Eddie Grantier, who
raises 100 head of cattle on the ranch his parents founded, conceded that the
ranch had wasted water for years, ultimately drying up a tributary of the <st1:place
w:st="on"><st1:PlaceName w:st="on">Blackfoot</st1:PlaceName> <st1:PlaceType
w:st="on">River</st1:PlaceType></st1:place> used by vulnerable bull and
cutthroat trout swimming upstream to spawn.<br>
<br>
After officials from the advocacy group Trout Unlimited raised $110,000 to
install a sprinkler irrigation system, pump and pipeline, and a screen to keep
fish from getting trapped in the intake pipes, Grantier threw in $20,000 worth
of his own work to conserve water.<br>
<br>
Since the project was completed last year, the creek has been carrying nearly
7,000 gallons more per minute, a flow equivalent to <st1:State w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">Washington</st1:place></st1:State>'s Rock Creek. Grantier, whose
ranch lies just west of the Continental Divide, said the new irrigation system
allows him to grow twice as much hay and has not interfered with cattle
raising.<br>
<br>
"It didn't make a problem for me," he said.<br>
<br>
Laura Ziemer, who directs Trout Unlimited's Montana Water Project, said this
success shows that even modest changes in water use can make a major difference
for wildlife.<br>
<br>
"Every river has been drained within an inch of its life," said
Ziemer, adding that every native trout species in the West is either on the
federal endangered species list or being considered for it. "We're going
to make a small difference in key pieces of stream. ... We had to, in essence,
create a water right for fish."<br>
<br>
But for every feel-good story such as Poorman Creek, there's at least one <st1:place
w:st="on"><st1:PlaceName w:st="on">Klamath</st1:PlaceName> <st1:PlaceType
w:st="on">Basin</st1:PlaceType></st1:place>. The 250-mile-long Klamath River flows
from <st1:State w:st="on">Oregon</st1:State>'s Upper Klamath Lake to the
Pacific on the northern <st1:State w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">California</st1:place></st1:State>
coast.<br>
<br>
The federal Bureau of Reclamation, which has the job of allocating Klamath
water among competing interests, has been at the center of a seesaw battle over
the irrigation needs of agriculture and the preservation of fish species prized
by sportsmen and local tribes.<br>
<br>
When the government deprived Klamath farmers of about three-fourths of their
regular water allotment in 2001 to help sustain two species of endangered sucker
fish -- lake-dwellers that migrate upstream in the Klamath -- farmers howled.
The next year, the government allocated more water for farmers, and tens of
thousands of salmon and steelhead trout died from disease and heat strain.<br>
<br>
Agriculture has long been a potent political force in local, state and federal
politics, both because farmers remain an American icon and because they are
well organized and have close contacts with lawmakers.<br>
<br>
Not surprisingly, Congress and the executive branch have historically sided
with farmers. States usually doled out water rights, and the federal government
funded massive engineering projects to make irrigation affordable.<br>
<br>
Jeff McCracken, spokesman for the Bureau of Reclamation's Mid-Pacific bureau,
said his agency has no choice but to give farmers in <st1:State w:st="on">California</st1:State>'s
<st1:place w:st="on">Central Valley</st1:place> a better deal on water than
their urban neighbors. "The law does not allow us to charge interest"
to farmers, he said.<br>
<br>
Like Congress, the Bush administration has championed agriculture's water claims.<br>
<br>
"The administration is not paying attention to the laws of
biodiversity," said Glen Spain, the Northwest regional director for the
Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations. "It's paying far
more attention to the laws of political expediency."<br>
<br>
But Rep. Wally Herger, R-Calif., a third-generation farmer with a farm 35 miles
north of <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Sacramento</st1:place></st1:City>,
said farmers already have made concessions.<br>
<br>
"These farmers here have just about compromised to death up in the <st1:place
w:st="on"><st1:PlaceName w:st="on">Klamath</st1:PlaceName> <st1:PlaceType
w:st="on">Basin</st1:PlaceType></st1:place>," Herger said, noting farmers
have put in screens to protect migrating fish and approved the removal of
Chiloquin Dam to increase water flow. "One thing you find out in a hurry
is that environmentalists do not compromise."<br>
<br>
Rep. Mike Thompson, D-Calif., who represents fishermen and Indian tribes in the
northern part of the state, has been pushing unsuccessfully to provide $200
million over the next 12 years for conservation projects, including lining and
piping irrigation ditches to reduce water loss and recycling irrigation water.<br>
<br>
"I'm not saying you've got to stop farming and let the water go wherever
it wants to go." But, said Thompson, "you don't want to kill off all
the wildlife to promote farming."<br>
<br>
Federal authorities have poured tens of millions into the region for habitat
conservation, but in October the San Francisco-based U.S. Court of Appeals for
the 9th Circuit rejected the government's new 10-year regional water plan as
environmentally inadequate.<br>
<br>
Farming's water demands are becoming more contentious in the Southeast and the <st1:place
w:st="on">Great Plains</st1:place>, as well. While the number of irrigated
acres has recently dipped nationwide, according to Agriculture Department
statistics, <st1:State w:st="on">Arkansas</st1:State>, <st1:State w:st="on">Louisiana</st1:State>,
<st1:State w:st="on">Mississippi</st1:State>, <st1:State w:st="on">Nebraska</st1:State>
and the <st1:place w:st="on">Corn Belt</st1:place> have all increased
irrigation since 1982.<br>
<br>
Some environmentalists are concerned that even where water is relatively
plentiful, as in the Southeast, irrigation projects can harm valuable habitat.
Two advocacy groups are fighting proposed U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
irrigation projects along <st1:State w:st="on">Arkansas</st1:State>'s <st1:place
w:st="on">White River</st1:place>, arguing that they are economically
unjustified and could drain swamps that could be sheltering the rare
ivory-billed woodpecker.<br>
<br>
In <st1:City w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Tampa</st1:place></st1:City>, the
group Earthjustice is trying to block tomato farmers from using so much ground
water, citing evidence that salt water is intruding inland at a rate of five
inches a day.<br>
<br>
In <st1:State w:st="on">Nebraska</st1:State>, federal and state authorities are
struggling to balance corn and soybean growers' use of water from the <st1:place
w:st="on"><st1:PlaceName w:st="on">Platte</st1:PlaceName> <st1:PlaceType w:st="on">River</st1:PlaceType></st1:place>
against the needs of about 220 endangered wild whooping cranes, who depend on
the river on their twice-yearly migrations.<br>
<br>
But farmers and ranchers say critics fail to appreciate how they help society.
Jim Beecher in <st1:State w:st="on">California</st1:State>'s <st1:place w:st="on">Central
Valley</st1:place>, who receives subsidized water to irrigate his 8,500 acres
of cotton, lettuce, tomatoes and vineyards, said cheap water helps protect the
country's economic security.<br>
<br>
"Ultimately, Americans need to ask themselves if they want to be dependent
on feeding themselves, or be dependent on the importation of food the way we're
dependent on the importation of fuel," Beecher said.<br>
<br>
Researcher Don Pohlman contributed to this report. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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