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Water Rights, Water Fights

He works seven days a week. With his brother, he cultivates the land that has been his family's since 1880. Fifty-seven years ago, when the first water was delivered to the ranch, the Koster's lives drastically changed. Bill Koster recalls his grandfather, as saying when the water arrived, "What the hell do I do with it now?" Koster's grandfather farmed dry land-crops, like wheat, before the arrival of federal water. Now that water is a precious commodity.

In Gold Rush California, "miners' law" dominated water transfers-the movement of water from the source to its user, according to the Water Education Foundation (WEF). These "appropriative rights" led to legal battles over who really owned rights to the state's water.

After years of legal battles, water rights were finally established. But the conflict continues between environmental, agricultural and urban water users.

Koster has problems holding ground in this three-way tug-of-war. His water rates have increased 273 percent since 1993. "We're really having a hard time justifying that cost," says Koster.

Koster buys his water from the Central Valley Project (CVP), the largest single supplier of agricultural water in California, says Kranz. The CVP isn't important to all farmers, about 75 percent of whom get their water from local wells, rivers or aquifers. Koster's ballooning water rates are most directly caused by the passage of a federal appropriations act aimed at repairing ecological damage. The Central Valley Project Improvement Act (CVPIA) was passed in 1992. The expiration of long term contracts, held with the CVP since 1949, also pushed rates up.

These contracts were 40-years long with fixed water costs from $2 an acre foot- enough to cover an entire football field in a foot of water-to $3.50 an acre foot (af), says Jim Bjornsen, chief of the rate setting section at the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, which owns and operates the CVP. But by the 1970s, Bjornsen adds, the Bureau realized that these fixed rates would not be enough to foot the bill for the 200 dams and reservoirs built since 1937.

When the contracts began expiring in 1989, the CVP raised rates. Some new contracts pushed water prices up 750 percent or more because the Bureau began to factor-in the cost of service to deliver the water (the electricity used to pump it, and the construction of aqueducts and other structures to transport it).

The act also required the CVP to annually provide 800,000 af of its water to the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta for the restoration of fisheries in the area. Furthermore, the act set up an annual $50 million restoration fund, financed by CVP customers, to repair environmental damage the CVP caused in the first place. Jeff McCracken, public affairs director at the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, says CVP customers pay at least $6 an af for agricultural users to $12 an af for urban users.

"I don't think that many CVP users have any problem with kicking in our share for the environment, but we didn't think it would be this much," says Koster.

When water supply is low, like it has been since the drought years began in 1987, Koster and other farmers are forced to farm differently. Since it's been dry, "there's a little more emphasis on crops with higher price tags," says Dave Kranz. "If you're paying more for water, you would look toward crops that bring the best prices."

And Koster is doing just that.

His farm produces almonds, walnuts, apricots, beans, barley and wheat. During drought, half his acreage- grains and beans- doesn't get watered. "We take that water and put it into the trees because we got 15 to 20 years invested in them. You don't let those go," says Koster.

Despite conservation, California still faces heavy water shortages.

"The Department of Water Resources estimates that without additional facilities there will be shortages of 3.7 million to 5.7 million acre feet annually, by the year 2020," says Dave Kranz, water information director at the California Farm Bureau. Kranz explains: "The largest reservoir in California is Shasta Lake and when it's full it holds 4.6 million acre feet. If we could build another reservoir the size of Shasta and keep it filled it still wouldn't be enough to fix the shortages we will face."

Exploding populations in Santa Clara, Metropolitan Los Angeles, Santa Ana and San Diego are blamed for the shortage. Combined, the South Coast region's population was 16.3 million in 1990 and is projected to increase to 25.3 million by 2020. South land growth affects the entire state's water supply, because it draws 67 percent of its water from other regions, according to the Department of Water Resources. The California Aqueduct, all 444 miles of it, helps transport southward over 2 million af of water a year from the Sacramento and San Joaquin delta.

The culture of family farming has become endangered because they're now so expensive and tiresome to operate. Koster hints that maybe farming isn't for everyone, including his own kids. "My kids will be the fifth generation, if they want to farm. Hell, they might want to pack up and move. I wouldn't blame them," says Koster.

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