Frequently Asked Questions

  1. What is the Definite Plan?
  2. When will the Definite Plan be completed?
  3. How much water needs to be saved on-farm?
  4. Can I save water by fallowing crops?
  5. Will I get to choose how I conserve water on my land?
  6. Is participation voluntary or will all growers have to conserve water?
  7. What is the economic incentive program going to look like? Will I get paid to conserve water?
  8. Why not just pay each grower to conserve water and let the growers figure out how to save the water? Why does the District have to be involved?
  9. How can I stay aware of what’s going on with the Definite Plan?
  10. I understand you are conducting demonstration projects. What kind of projects are these and what’s the aim?
  11. What happens if we don’t conserve enough water to meet the terms of the QSA?

  1. What is the Definite Plan?

    2. The Efficiency Conservation Definite Plan is an aggressive effort to further on-farm and system conservation savings in the Imperial Valley.

    Consistent with the 2003 Quantification Settlement Agreement (QSA), the Definite Plan is an ambitious planning process structured to identify a strategy for delivering up to 303,000 acre-feet of conserved water from a likely combination of on-farm and system efficiency conservation improvements by 2026. (The amount of conservation-generated transfers ramps up over time, increasing from just 4,000 acre-feet in 2008.) Successful implementation of the plan will eliminate the District’s reliance on fallowing by 2017.

    This planning process is intended to provide the District with a roadmap for implementing programs that achieve voluntary grower participation in on-farm conservation and for designing and constructing system projects that conserve water and provide flexible, reliable service to growers.

  2. When will the Definite Plan be completed?

    3. The Definite Pan Team – a mix of IID staff and outside consultants (click here to learn more about the Team) – is committed to producing by 2007 a reliable blueprint for generating transferable water through efficiency conservation. The Team’s efforts are focused on, among other things, identifying conservation opportunities associated with on-farm practices, determining system changes needed to support on-farm conservation and/or generate savings, and devising options for generating voluntary, incentive-driven on-farm savings. According to the terms of the QSA, system savings are scheduled to begin in 2008; on-farm conservation is scheduled to kick in by 2013, although savings generated by the on-farm component could begin any time after 2008.

  3. How much water needs to be saved on-farm?

    4. The QSA requires that at least 130,000 acre-feet of water is generated through on-farm conservation savings. However, there is nothing in the QSA that prevents on-farm conservation from generating more or all of the conserved water required under the transfer agreement.

  4. Can I save water by fallowing crops?

    5. No. The terms of the QSA require that on-farm savings are generated by efficiency conservation actions. Since current IID Board policy does not consider fallowing to be conservation, fallowing is not now eligible as a means of saving water. Moreover, the increased efficiency that will be achieved under the QSA will help avoid potential future challenges to IID’s water rights.

  5. Will I get to choose how I conserve water on my land?

    6. Yes. While the intent of the Efficiency Conservation Definite Plan planning process is to consider and evaluate specific actions growers are likely to take to generate on-farm conservation savings (a necessarily detailed and prescriptive-seeming process), once the plan is up and running, growers will have complete flexibility – with the exception of fallowing (and pseudo-fallowing) noted above – to choose those water-saving actions and practices they deem most practical for their fields and operations.

  6. Is participation voluntary or will all growers have to conserve water?

    7. Participation is structured to be rooted in growers’ and landowners’ voluntary participation. Accordingly, the Team is devising a strategy to use payments from the San Diego County Water Authority to fund on-farm water conservation. The Efficiency Conservation Definite Plan envisions an incentive-based program to induce growers and landowners to participate and conserve water.

  7. What is the economic incentive program going to look like? Will I get paid to conserve water?

    8. The District is considering, and the Plan will evaluate, a range of approaches to implement an on-farm incentive program. The intent is to pay growers for each acre-foot of wet water conserved, but the details of this incentive program are to be developed over the next year. Options under consideration include but will not necessarily be limited to those listed below:

    • IID constructs, or pays growers to construct, physical improvements to reduce water use (for example, tailwater recovery systems).
    • IID pays growers a certain amount per acre-foot of water saved. Growers would have flexibility to decide how much they wanted to save and how best to achieve it.
    • IID pays growers an amount per acre for each field enrolled in the conservation program. In return, enrolled fields would have to achieve a target water use, depending on crop and perhaps on soil or other characteristics.

  8. Why not just pay each grower to conserve water and let the growers figure out how to save the water? Why does the District have to be involved?

    9. The District’s charge is to generate the stipulated conservation savings in a cost-effective manner consistent with the terms of the QSA. Accordingly, it is important in this planning phase that the District carefully assess all options and conduct an analysis that consider different alternatives for generating the necessary wet-water savings. Additionally, the District needs to understand what, if any, modernization of the IID system is required to enable the necessary on-farm conservation.

  9. How can I stay aware of what’s going on with the Definite Plan?

    10. The Definite Plan Team is committed to conducting its work with the input of growers, landowners and others. Accordingly, the Team is relying on several different strategies to keep interested parties informed of the process and seek their input. The Team is producing a bi-monthly newsletter (click here to sign up for the mailing list). The Team also maintains this website – www.definiteplan.com – to provide regular updates regarding the planning process. Finally, the Team is also holding periodic workshops (see sidebar under "Upcoming Events" for the schedule of workshops) to be brief interested members of the public on the latest project progress. Additional opportunities to get involved will be announced on the website.

  10. I understand you are conducting demonstration projects. What kind of projects are these and what’s the aim?

    11. The Team has launched more than a dozen demonstration projects – both on-farm and system-related – to measure the likely impact of certain conservation practices, better understand their costs and management requirements, and assess growers’ willingness to use such practices. The results of the demonstration projects will be described in a series of brief papers to be shared with growers, landowners and others. Click here to view a listing of current demonstration projects.

  11. What happens if we don’t conserve enough water to meet the terms of the QSA?

    12. If IID is unable to gain sufficient participation to generate the necessary savings, various parties to the agreement could force renegotiations. The District also could consider shifting to a mandatory program.