Farmers prepare for the possibility of new curtailments
By Ching Lee
Calif. Farm Bureau Federation
When it came, the notice was disappointing but not surprising: The State Water Resources Control Board warned farmers, ranchers and other people with water rights to prepare for another round of curtailments in 2015. Coming off a year that resulted in water cutbacks to farms even in the North State that historically enjoyed more secured supplies, some farmers say they are planning early for another year of possible reductions.
“If you are in a water-short area, you should be looking into additional conservation measures and alternative water supplies for your water needs,” the water board notice advised. “Planting and planning decisions should be made in light of possible curtailment of junior rights.”
More than 9,000 curtailment orders were issued last year to junior water right holders – those who acquired their water rights after 1914 – due to lack of supply, the board said.
Best-Case, Worst-Case Scenarios Considered
Having worked at Montna Farms in Sutter County for 21 years, rice farmer Nicole Montna Van Vleck said she didn’t experience the state’s last big drought in 1991-92 and, therefore, “didn’t have that institutional knowledge on what to do and how to operate when you’re not planting your entire operation.”
The farm has junior water rights from several water licenses to pump out of the Sutter Bypass and does not have access to groundwater. Due to water cutbacks last year, the farm was forced to reduce one-third of its production, Van Vleck noted.
Whereas last year she was spending much time and many resources trying to figure out what the curtailments mean and how they would be implemented, this year she’s planning ahead by making budgets and planting decisions based on best-case and worst-case scenarios.
More than 9,000 curtailment orders were issued last year to junior water right holders due to lack of supply”
“Learning how to operate and manage in this ‘what-if’ type of world is new,” she said, “but we do have tools now that help us. We have the benefit of what we did last year, of what worked and what didn’t, so it’s a little easier from a management standpoint because we’re better informed than we were last year.”
Having less water to grow rice has other negative impacts, such as to waterfowl and other migratory birds that depend on flooded rice fields for food and habitat, she said.
As part of the Sutter Bypass-Butte Slough Water Users Association, Van Vleck said the group is exploring alternate water supplies, such as buying water from another district, but she acknowledged the association does not yet have a solution.
Pre-1914 Water Rights
For Jim Van Dyke, who runs a rice-drying operation in Pleasant Grove, the economic impact of the drought truly hit home last year when business at the facility dropped 35 percent because of reduced plantings. He said if water supplies do not recover, he expects his business will decline at least 50 percent this year. Van Dyke’s daughter also farms rice, and he reported that she faced severe water cutbacks last year. On one ranch that buys water from the Pleasant Grove- Verona Mutual Water Co., which draws water from Shasta Dam through the federal Central Valley Project, he said she received no water and ended up planting only one-fifth of the land, using groundwater and “what some pumps could handle.”
The water board warned riparian and pre-1914 water right holders that curtailing diversions might be necessary again this year due to surface water shortage.”
Farmers with junior water rights are not the only ones concerned about how the rest of the rainy season will play out and the potential of having their supplies cut off. Complicating matters is the fact that although the board has some preliminary authority to issue “cease and desist” orders to stop the unauthorized diversion of water, it does not have general jurisdiction over riparian and pre-1914 water rights. California Farm Bureau Federation environmental attorney Chris Scheuring said that would likely make any curtailment actions against those categories of senior water rights a matter of controversy. In its notice, issued Jan. 23, the water board warned water right holders – including those with riparian and pre- 1914 water rights – that curtailing diversions might be necessary again this year due to surface water shortage.
The letter said “if hydrologic conditions do not significantly improve in the next several months, the State Water Board will once again begin notifying water right holders in critically dry watersheds of the requirement to limit or stop diversions of water under their water right, based on their priority.”
The most junior right holders would be required to discontinue use first, but some more-senior riparian and pre-1914 water right holders might also be asked to stop diverting water “based on their priority or limitation of natural flow,” the letter explained.
Ching Lee (clee@cfbf.com) is an assistant editor of Ag Alert. Read this article in its entirety at www.agalert.com.