Eat Your Cake and Have It

Farmers in Southern California pay less for water, but they are first to face water cuts in shortage. This story describes their attempts to avoid cuts:

Growers on a discounted water program who have been subject to mandated supply cuts for more than three months said this week that they shouldn't have to split the limited resource, which is essential to their business, between their homes and groves.

They said they should be allowed to buy domestic meters that would deliver full-priced, unrestricted water to their homes, leaving 100 percent of their discounted water for agricultural use.

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Ben Holtz, whose family has grown avocados on Circle R Drive in Valley Center for nearly 40 years, is one of the growers who said he wants a residential meter that is separate from the water allocation he's locked into under program rules.

"As agriculture customers, we're just as qualified to buy (domestic) water as some guy who's going to put in 10 houses," he said.

Under Metropolitan's guidelines, any water delivered to a property participating in the agricultural program is subject to the supply cut, even if some of the allocation is used for domestic purposes.

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Holtz and others said they'd be willing to forgo the discount if they could get out of the program and buy more water.

But Arant warned that leaving the program and paying full price for water wouldn't necessarily shield growers from supply cuts, because Metropolitan was created to supply water for municipal and industrial customers, not for agriculture.

When times are good, they are happy to get domestic and ag water at a discount; when water's is short, they want to buy more water -- circumventing the reductions they promised to make in exchange for discounted prices.

Bottom Line: Across the board cuts are the deal. If farmers want to buy more water, make them pay full price for all water. Subsidies lead to waste and over-use.