Conserving Water: Making the San Diego Transfer Real

A little more than two years ago, as part of the Quantification Settlement Agreement (QSA), the Imperial Irrigation District (District) agreed to an ambitious transfer of water to the San Diego County Water Authority and the Coachella Valley Water District.

Hammering out the details was challenging enough, but now comes the truly tough part: moving from paper agreements to wet-water savings. The Efficiency Conservation Definite Plan (Definite Plan) is intended to provide a roadmap for doing just that. And it is a roadmap that must be rooted in the voluntary participation of growers throughout the District.

Based on the agreement, the QSA efficiency conservation-generated transfers are to start slow: Just 4,000 acre-feet is to be conserved and transferred to the Coachella Valley Water District two years from now. But that modest pace quickly ramps up. In fact, by 2028, the District must be conserving and transferring nearly 303,000 acre-feet annually —or nearly one out of every 10 acre-feet of water it typically diverts from the Colorado River each year. What’s more, it’s likely that at least two-thirds of that total needs to come from on-farm savings, with the first on-farm savings required no later than 2013. (Current transfer of water to San Diego is generated through a temporary fallowing program to be phased out by 2017.)

This is no small order. Imperial Valley growers already take many steps to conserve water throughout the District. But more will need to be done. Figuring out that strategy—identifying verifiable actions and determining incentives that will entice growers to participate—is at the heart of the Definite Plan.

How the District moves forward in this endeavor is of critical importance. It is critical to the District’s growers, who must see benefits if they are to actively participate. It is critical to the broader Imperial Valley community, which wants to protect and enhance the region’s economic vitality. And it is critical to others in the State and elsewhere who are eager to see the District meet its commitments to other water agencies, to the State of California and to the Colorado River Basin states and federal government.

What’s in a name?

Don’t be fooled by the name Definite Plan. While the District must develop an efficiency conservation strategy that can provide the required water with certainty, the plan is anything but “definite” right now. So how is the District to build certainty in a plan rooted in voluntary actions? How is it to generate on-farm conservation at a fair price for all? And how much modernization, if any, will the IID system require to enable aggressive on-farm conservation? All of these presently unanswered questions are to be addressed through the Definite Plan process.

The Definite Plan is intended to identify the most probable mix of on-farm actions, incentive packages and systems improvements that can collectively deliver the water required by the transfer agreement and do so in a way that assures the actions proposed are cost-effective, implementable, verifiable and acceptable to growers, the District and others with a stake in the transfer program.

To develop this Definite Plan, the District is leading a team of highly experienced professionals with a proven track record of innovative approaches, extensive familiarity with Imperial Valley agricultural and irrigation practices, and committed to practical solutions. Spearheaded by IID Executive Program Manager John Eckhardt, the Definite Plan Team (Team) will be working closely with local growers and District staff to identify and test options for generating the necessary savings.

Principles for Moving Forward

The task is ambitious and the timeline aggressive: By January 2007—just about one year from now—the Team needs to put forward a reliable blueprint for generating transferable water over the next 35 to 75 years. The Team’s work plan for achieving this is rooted in several key principles.

Most critically, growers must be actively engaged in co-designing the Definite Plan. Grower involvement is seen as pivotal if the Team is to put together a package of actions and incentives capable of attracting growers’ participation. It also means that all practical, cost-effective methods for generating the necessary savings will be considered as part of this planning effort.

Additionally, the Definite Plan needs to identify and recommend system changes necessary to support on-farm conservation. Given the volume of water needed to be conserved on-farm, it is likely the District will need to alter the way it distributes water to growers to improve delivery flexibility. This potentially could include significant changes to current District operations and infrastructure.

Finally, any possible package of actions must be both ground-truthed and cost-effective. Conservation actions—whether on-farm or related to District improvements—must be tested through demonstration projects to ensure they are workable solutions in the Valley and acceptable to growers and the District. Theoretical solutions are not acceptable. Similarly, it is important to identify the least-cost (or near least-cost) blend of system and on-farm improvements.

Development of the Definite Plan also is bounded by several important assumptions. They are: (1) no fallowing is allowed; (2) grower and landowner participation is voluntary and incentive-driven; (3) saved water must be verifiable; (4) any viable method of water conservation will be considered as long as it is cost-effective; and (5) the contractually stipulated ramp-up schedule must be met. But beyond the principles and assumptions lies a challenging analysis.

Building the Definite Plan

To tackle the analysis, the Team is moving forward aggressively with a technical approach focused on the following major work elements:

• Characterizing on-farm costs and performance:

  As a first step, Team members will be working with local growers to characterize existing and possible future on-farm irrigation systems. This step includes assessing for each possible action: capital, operations and maintenance costs; performance; and delivery flexibility requirements.

• Assessing on-farm economics to determine a viable incentive program:

  Given the voluntary nature of the program, the Team will develop an on-farm economics decision tool to: (1) help design appropriate conservation incentive programs; and (2) estimate likely participation in and effects of possible conservation incentive programs.

• Identifying and demonstrating possible on-farm conservation actions:

  The Team intends to launch on-farm and system-related demonstration projects—some beginning as early as March—to measure their likely impact, better understand their costs and management requirements, and assess growers’ willingness to use such practices.

• Assessing District system practices, possible changes and costs:

  While it is possible that on-farm practices alone may prove sufficient to satisfy the transfer requirements, it is likely that some system improvements will be needed—both to generate water savings and support on-farm conservation activities. This facet of the study will identify system modernization strategies and costs that provide a range of delivery flexibility to growers

• Building and evaluating alternatives:

  The last piece of the analysis focuses on identifying and evaluating various alternatives for generating the necessary water savings. Sophisticated technical analyses together with grower participation will be used to identify the most practical way forward.

Finally, the Team recognizes the vital importance of working with growers every step of the way. For that reason, the final element of the work plan is a comprehensive grower involvement plan intended to ensure growers are co-inventing approaches and ground-truthing the Team’s evolving analysis. Moreover, the work plan calls for extensive outreach to the broader public to ensure interested members of the community have an opportunity to weigh in on the development of the Definite Plan.