The head of a Butte County water district intent on selling water to San Joaquin Valley nut orchard operators dismissed concerns raised by county officials and said the district is fully complying with regulations.
Eugene Massa, general manager of the Biggs-West Gridley Water District, said he has no plans to cancel or alter in any way a water transfer deal with West Hills Farm Servicesof Fresno through the state Department of Water Resources.
On Tuesday, the Butte County Board of Supervisors formally announced its opposition to the proposal, saying it would fallow an unacceptable amount of rice fields, violating accepted best management practices, and could lead to illegal groundwater pumping.
The crux of the dispute boils down to interpretation of the state’s notoriously arcane water regulations. Massa insists that districts may fallow up to a fifth of their total acreage and sell the water that farmers would have used. Vickie Newlin, assistant director of the county’s Department of Water and Resource Conservation, said no more than a fifth of the acreage devoted to any single crop may be idled for the sake of water transfers. If other districts in the county tried to follow Biggs-West Gridley’s lead with their own water sale, Newlin said the county-wide 20 percent threshold could be crossed.
Pointing to water transfers his agency made in 2010, 2012 and last year, Massa said this year’s planned sale is no different from the earlier ones and also complies with applicable regulations.
Newlin said the sale would create large contiguous swaths of parched soil, potentially creating significant impacts on wildlife, throwing into question the district’s contention that the sale would cause no significant environmental impacts.