Board Backs Water District's Plan for Conservation Project

By City News Service

Riverside County supervisors signed off Tuesday on a plan by the Coachella Valley Water District to preserve groundwater supplies covering a 7,100-acre space by shifting agricultural interests from wells to the Colorado River for irrigation.

In a 5-0 vote without comment, the Board of Supervisors gave the CVWD the go-ahead to form an assessment district in the Oasis area, within the county’s jurisdiction on the eastern edge of the Coachella Valley.

District voters must still approve the Oasis Project. Mail-in ballots went out this month and must be returned by July 14, according to CVWD spokesman Jack Porelli.

“We’re trying to get farmers to switch from using ground water out there and put them on the 123-mile Coachella Canal,” Porelli told City News Service. “The project will mean expanding the canal irrigation system. We’re hoping to save at least 32,000 acre-feet of ground water per year. We’re fast- tracking this as best we can.”

The canal is supplied with Colorado River water -- a source that’s considered more suitable for agricultural operations than the gradually shrinking supplies in the Oasis aquifer, according to Porelli.

He said the area where the proposed assessment district is planned is used exclusively by farmers, who will help pay for the Oasis Project via special assessments.

“Some day, there’s likely to be residential development there,” Porelli told CNS. “We want to stabilize the water table now.”

The $44 million project, which will involve laying 20 miles of pipe, will get underway in September if district voters approve it. The project will take about two years to complete.