By Doug Curlee | Editor at Large

Severe water restrictions due to the California drought will be in place from the state by June 1, but the battle has already begun to change provisions arising out of Gov. Jerry Brown’s emergency proclamation.

The San Diego County Water Authority is challenging the direction apparently taken by the state Water Resources Control Board, saying the proposed regulations unfairly penalize our region.

“We strongly support additional conservation, and the governor’s goals are laudable, but, they haven’t yet translated into proposed regulations that are equitable, protect our economy, or advance sensible long-term water policies,” said Water Authority Chairman Mark Weston.

The state’s Water Resources Control Board Chairperson Felicia Marcus was not exactly sympathetic.

“These are very difficult times, and everyone, urban and rural, will have to make sacrifices as we go through them”, Marcus says. “As we deal with an unprecedented drought, both urban and rural water users should anticipate we will continue to take unprecedented actions.”

The process of converting Brown’s proclamation into workable regulations to achieve a mandatory 25 percent cut in water usage is going on as you read this, and will be voted on in Sacramento in early May.

Chief among the policies Weston and the local water authority question are the fact that the proposed regulations make no provision to recognize the considerable investment — over $2 billion — that the Authority spent building the Carlsbad desalination project that will come online later this year, or the hundreds of millions of dollars spent to build the Olivenhain dam and raise the San Vicente dam face to more than double the capacity of that reservoir.

There is also concern that the proposed rules will treat San Diego County’s $2 billion agricultural industry the same as the soon-to-be restricted lawn and garden watering that homeowners will have to live with. San Diego’s Water Authority wants the agriculture industry exempted from the 25 percent mandatory cutbacks, just as is the agriculture in California’s Central Valley.

The Water Authority is far from the only entity objecting to what they see coming. Many farmers in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta are livid about the possibility they will have to give up rights to water they’ve been using freely for 150 years. Some are saying they will simply refuse to obey any such regulations, and dare the state to come after them.

Board Chairperson Marcus says long-standing water rights all over California, called senior rights, may have to be re-examined and possibly done away with. Last year, approximately 400,000 acres of agricultural were left fallow, or unplanted, due to somewhat lesser restrictions imposed at that time. This time could be worse.

This whole process is on a very tight time schedule. By the time you finish reading this story, the period for public input into the proposed rules will have already expired. The board will meet in Sacramento for a public hearing and adoption of the rules no later than May 6, with rules to take effect June 1.

It would be naïve to think politics are not involved here. We have heard little from the environmental community about all this so far, but that won’t last. There will be a lot of comment from both the liberal coastal regions of the state, and the conservative inland and mountain regions. There will be the usual north versus south arguments, and the usual people versus fish arguments. There will likely be lawsuits from all corners, depending on what happens where.

Through all of that, the thing to keep in mind is that the Water Resources Control Board members will end up doing what Jerry Brown wants them to do.

There are five members on that board, and they were all appointed to office by Jerry Brown.

—Contact Doug Curlee at [email protected].