Water: Cities, agriculture compete for precious, dwindling resource

Draw a tall cool glass of water from the tap anywhere in this county, and you'll be drinking water that came out of the ground.

For cities and farms alike, most water comes from one source -- wells. Much of the water Merced County uses comes from a common groundwater basin pumped by thousands of wells that, for the last 30 years, have been sucking down that resource.

The communal depletion has taken a toll on the basin. In some areas of the county, wells are drying up.

For most of the county's history, each year the bucket of water the county drinks from has been replenished with every winter's rains. But a complex nexus of growth, drought and failure to plan may be changing the calculus of water use in California and Merced County.

Ever-expanding cities in Merced County -- still minor users in the broader picture -- are increasingly competing for water with farmers and the environment. This urban-rural-ecological division wouldn't be as much of an issue if climate change wasn't bearing down on the age-old weather pattern people have come to expect.

Less rain in the future will mean less water for more people, crops and local ecosystems.

In preparation for this looming shift, state and federal authorities are trying to lessen the effects of both climate change and its human causes.

But local land use, development and their impacts on water planning comprise another issue. Today, a collection of interests compete over the same sources of water. The success or failure of local preparations for the impending water crisis will make all the difference.

Some contend that unless cities,the county, water providers and farmers come together and plan intelligently for the future, the days to come will be ugly. If each local entity continues as before without regard to its neighbors, the basin may fall into legal infighting, governing water use through the courts -- or worse.

One alternative is to form an elected body that governs collective resources. A body that may fundamentally alter the pattern of development and governance in the county -- with limits.

And because water under the ground knows no jurisdictions, the extreme solution might be a super agency with power over all water resources in the state. That is a solution few local governments would be happy with.

"Everyone will have to make compromises in order for all of us to survive," said Hicham Eltal, the chairman of an outfit that may be the future of water planning in Merced County -- MAGPI (Merced Area Groundwater Pool Interests). He's now a senior official of the Merced Irrigation District, the organization historically charged with managing a huge chunk of water resources.

But to understand the future of water, you need to understand its present.

No one knows exactly how much water there is below the ground. But there is an idea of how much water the county uses.

A 2001 study, the Merced Water Supply Plan, illustrates the competing forces that use water in Merced, as well as the burden that humans put upon the Eastern Merced Basin. The study looked at eastern Merced County, which sucks roughly a million acre-feet out of the ground each year. An acre-foot is the equivalent to the yearly water use of one Valley family or 326,000 gallons.

It's no secret who uses the most water in Merced County -- farmers. In 2000, they collectively pumped 828,000 acre-feet from the ground just in the eastern half of the county. That number is projected to increase to 1,042,000 by 2040.