My name is JB Hamby and I am a general election candidate for the Imperial Irrigation District Board of Directors and fourth-generation resident of the Imperial Valley.
I read Mr. Hudson’s op-ed, “Clean Drinking Water, Considered, Part Five” and share much of his skepticism regarding the conversation happening along the Colorado River, its tributaries, and the special interests that surround it.
However, I did want to reach out and share some concerns with a few points raised in the editorial — specifically the comments on Imperial Valley.
As you know, California is limited to the use of 4.4 million acre-feet of Colorado River water annually. Until the completion of the Central Arizona Project, California used Arizona’s unused entitlement. California had rights to 4.4 million acre-feet but used sometimes upwards of 5.2 million acre-feet per year.
Once Arizona completed the CAP, it was able to use its full entitlement — meaning California was demanded by Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbit to reduce its use by 800,000 acre-feet back to its entitlement. Simply, Arizona’s unused water was then being used by Arizona.
But to be clear, it was the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California with rights to just 550,000 acre-feet per year was diverting that 550,000 acre-feet plus an additional 800,000 acre-feet that Arizona had not been using. It was the Metropolitan Water District (Los Angeles) not the IID (Imperial Valley) that was using excessive water beyond its entitlement.
While IID has the largest right within California, it was not the Imperial Valley that was responsible for California’s overuse. That was the Metropolitan Water District.
We are among the very oldest users on the Colorado River and have built a community, ecology, and way of life here in the desert dependent upon the waters of the Colorado that have sustained us since 1901.
To remedy California’s overuse of Colorado River water, Secretary of the Interior Babbit and later Secretary Gale Norton forced California under great duress and the threat of cutbacks into a plan to reduce its use back to 4.4 million acre-feet.
However, during this time the Imperial Valley was no sacred cow as Mr. Hudson’s editorial suggested. We were the sacrificial lamb.
For context, Imperial Valley’s future users first claimed rights on the Colorado River of 7.2 million acre-feet per year (you read this correctly). We then sought to build the All-American Canal and the Hoover Dam to protect us from floods and securely deliver water to our Valley without having to divert through Mexico. In order to accomplish these things, we worked across the Colorado River Basin and with fine folks like Colorado’s own Delph Carpenter to form the Colorado River Compact giving each Basin 7.5 million acre-feet per year.
With the Boulder Canyon Project Act, California limited itself to 4.4 million acre-feet per year. Within California, we established a priority system with Palo Verde, Bard, Imperial, and Coachella sharing 3.85 million acre-feet per year. IID was able to use whatever Palo Verde and Bard did not without exceeding 3.85 million acre-feet total amongst the agricultural users. Metropolitan, junior to the agricultural users, had rights to 550,000 acre-feet, thus 4.4 million acre-feet total for California.
So in the leadup to 2003 when Interior demanded California return to using its rights to 4.4 million acre-feet rather than 5.2 million acre-feet, was it the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California who was using 1.35 million acre-feet (with rights only for 550,000 acre-feet) that was cut back to its entitlement?
No. Because the political sacred cow you reference was really the sacrificial lamb. As part of the 2003 Quantification Settlement Agreement, IID’s rights were reduced to 3.1 million acre-feet per year (less than we historically used) and further is obligated to transfer to coastal California and another agricultural district 500,000 acre feet per year — nearly 20% of our entitlement.
To put a finer point, we at one time had rights to 7.2 million acre-feet. We reduced our rights to 3.85 million acre-feet less the use of the two senior California users. We then had our rights quantified at 3.1 million acre-feet and were obligated to transfer away nearly 20% of that. We presently have the right to use just 2.6 million acre-feet and annually use hundreds of thousands of acre-feet less than that.
We sacrificed so that others (who were the ones that used more than they were entitled to) did not have to.
I would also like to submit that wealthy industrial farmers, as Mr. Hudson puts it in his editorial, are not the only ones who benefit from the use of this water. There are roughly 179,500 of us who also live here and enjoy this resource who do not fit that description. I’d also suggest that many meals this winter Pagosans enjoyed were sourced from our Valley, and more than likely any onions they will enjoy this month. I won’t dive into the Salton Sea, but it should not be forgotten that the decline of the Salton Sea ecosystem and impending public health disaster are the results of less water being used in our Valley and sustaining the Salton Sea.
Many of the discussions ahead on the Colorado River will be intended to point at one rural community or another who must be sacrificed for the supposed good of all. Just as simple as it is to point the finger at Imperial Valley, it is just as easy to point the finger at Archuleta County, the Grand Valley, Yuma County, or the Uncompahgre Valley. This is not in any of our interests.
We would be much better in cooperating together to preserve rural communities threatened by the ceaseless future demands of Los Angeles, Phoenix, Las Vegas, Denver and others who will see all of our communities as the solution to their self-created problems. It is not our communities’ responsibility to supply their endless demands.
I understand Mr. Hudson serves on the San Juan Water Conservancy District Board — my mom’s side of the family comes from Farmington, NM, and my grandfather is a small irrigator in the Bloomfield Irrigation District on the San Juan River. Oddly enough, when I was about 7 years old I accidentally dropped an IID branded cup I had won in a raffle off a boat into the bottom of Navajo Lake on a family trip.
I will look forward to learning more about Mr. Hudson’s concerns and San Juan Water Conservancy District Board. There is a great deal to be gained by rural communities joining together in advance of significant pressures ahead in the Colorado River Basin.
With gratitude,
JB Hamby