Water Shortages

Some Southern California cities fine residents for watering their lawns too much during droughts. But in Orange, officials are locked in a legal battle with a couple accused of violating city ordinances for removing their lawn in an attempt to save water. The dispute began two years ago, when Quan and Angelina Ha tore out the grass in their frontyard. In drought-plagued Southern California, the couple said, the lush grass had been soaking up tens of thousands of gallons of water -- and hundreds of dollars -- each year.

When California Sen. Dianne Feinstein drafted legislation that would weaken endangered species protections to deliver more water to San Joaquin Valley farms, her rationale was jobs. "People in California's breadbasket face complete economic ruin," the Democrat said in a recent statement. She was joining a chorus of Central Valley politicians and farm groups that during the last year have painted the region as a dust bowl, beset by drought and environmental protections that are cutting vital water deliveries and the jobs that depend on them.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein has drawn up legislation that for the next two years would loosen Endangered Species Act restrictions on pumping water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta to increase irrigation deliveries to San Joaquin Valley growers. Feinstein has not released details of the proposal, which she is calling the Emergency Temporary Water Supply Amendment and which is expected to be attached to a jobs bill. In a statement Thursday she said that the language had not been finalized and that she was open to "alternative ways" of boosting water supplies for the valley's west side, which has been hit hard by delivery cuts caused by the state drought and the pumping limits.

A federal judge has temporarily lifted pumping curbs designed to protect salmon migration in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, an action that allows the diversion of more winter storm flows to farms and cities in the south. Friday's ruling is the latest in a tortuous legal fight over Endangered Species Act protections that limit pumping from the troubled delta east of San Francisco, a source of water for 23 million Californians and millions of acres of farmland. The decision was a victory, however brief, for San Joaquin Valley irrigation districts that have tried in the courts and the halls of Congress to loosen pumping restraints that have reduced their water deliveries.

Federal managers said Tuesday they are speeding up delivery of irrigation water to farmers on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley because recent storms have boosted the state's water supply. "Essentially we're saying we're confident enough right now that we can provide this as an assured water supply . . . and it will give them a jump- start on this year's water season," said Deputy Interior Secretary David Hayes. West-side farmers suffered the greatest irrigation cutbacks last year, largely because of the state's three-year drought.

A state judge has overturned a celebrated 2003 deal governing the state's use of Colorado River water supplies, a ruling that could tilt the equation for how Southern California's farms and cities share the scarce resource. The Superior Court decision, released Thursday, sets in motion an appeals process as well as efforts to salvage the landmark pact. "It is not the end," said Dennis Cushman, assistant general manager of the San Diego County Water Authority, a major beneficiary of the deal.

Steamed about water Re "Best answer to state's water woes may be you," Nov. 24 How interesting that in The Times' article about California's water shortage, you never once used the phrase "agricultural use." It also was not included in your water-use chart. The column representing agricultural use would not have fit on the page. I'm all for water conservation, but it galls me to have to beg for an eight-ounce glass of water at a restaurant when about 10 million irrigated acres of California farmland are sucking up 11 trillion gallons of the stuff a year.

Katie Martin grew up with a set of water commandments. No lingering in the shower. Turn off the faucet when you brush your teeth. Don't flood the yard. Until she left for college this fall, the 19-year-old lived with her family in a typical California stucco house with a lawn. But when it comes to water, neither the Martins nor their town, San Luis Obispo, is typical. Katie, her parents and little brother use roughly half the water on a per-person basis as the average single-family household in Los Angeles used last year.

Aisha Sufi, a woman with tired eyes and nine children, waits for a water truck in a nation of drought. She is one of an estimated 150,000 Yemenis who have left their villages this year bound for Sana, Yemen's capital, in search of basic needs. Water and jobs, for example, are increasingly scarce in rural regions where many populations have quadrupled since the 1980s. "It's not good here or there, but it's better to be here," said Sufi, who lives in the Hoshaishiya neighborhood of Sana.

In a bow to a summer of angry complaints about water cutbacks to Central Valley farms, the Obama administration said Wednesday it would invite the National Academy of Sciences to examine the environmental measures restricting some water shipments from Northern California. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said he would ask the academy to conduct an independent review of the science underpinning federal pumping limits imposed under the Endangered Species Act to protect smelt and salmon in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.