Water, water, water. Or the lack of it. Either way, it's on everybody's mind these days, whether it's a tiny endangered fish in the Sacramento River Delta, shrinking snowpacks or groundwater overdraft in the San Joaquin Valley. It's long been on the mind of Brent Graham, who is stepping down after 40 years as the head of the Tulare Lake Basin Water Storage District.

Graham had a lot to say in an interview with The Sentinel on Friday.

He believes water issues are better understood by Kings County residents than by more urban dwellers who turn on the tap and expect the water to be there.

If you live in Kings County, chances are you know or have talked to a farmer, he said. So the chances are better that you will understand the competing uses for water, the availability of water and the fact water policy needs to be clearly thought out.

It's those kinds of competing concerns that Graham has waded into over the last four decades, many of them involving state political wrangling over water policy.

As general manager of Tulare Lake Basin Water Storage District, it was Graham's responsibility to represent the owners of the district, some 60 landowners covering 185,000 acres mostly in southern Kings County.

That's prime cropland, and it requires a lot of water to stay in production.

It may seem a world away from Hanford's well water, but Graham said there's more connection between Kings County's towns and irrigated fields than people realize.

"People in the cities have to realize that when you pump something out, you have to put something back in," Graham said.

In serving as an advisor on water policy statewide, Graham said he's seen a lot of agreement between urban water agencies and agricultural irrigation districts.

There is general acceptance of the peripheral canal idea, he said.

The peripheral canal would siphon water out of the Sacramento River above the river's delta and pump it along the eastern edge, eventually ending up near the intakes on the California Aqueduct, which send water south to farms and cities in the San Joaquin Valley and Southern California.

Currently, the water is sucked right out of the Delta, which threatens the endangered Delta smelt.

A federal judge in Fresno ruled last year that the pumping had to be curtailed because the fish could be sucked into the intakes.

The result is almost 25 percent less water available to Tulare Lake Basin this year, according to Mark Gilkey, the new general manager who took over from Graham.

Urban agencies that depend on Aqueduct water are united with Tulare Lake Basin in calling for a solution to the Delta problem, Graham said.

But the ongoing fight over environmentalism has not been resolved.

Take the issue of "extra" Kings River water. Some 200,000 acre-feet per year on average flows to the Pacific Ocean (an acre-foot is enough water to cover one acre of ground to a depth of one foot).

The way it works is that in flood years, excess water that can't be stored in Pine Flat Dam and can't be absorbed by Kings County fields is shunted north into the San Joaquin River channel.

From there, it goes to the Sacramento Delta and into San Francisco Bay.

Environmentalists do not see that water as wasted. They see it as helping to maintain a healthy river ecosystem and helping restore the salmon run to the San Joaquin.

From Graham's perspective, it's water that could be captured and used for groundwater recharge.

Don Mills, manager of the Kings County Water District, shares that concern.

Mill's district includes approximately 140,000 acres of crop land in northeastern Kings County.

Mills wants to capture some of that water and put into extensive recharge ponds to beef up underground aquifers.

He and Graham also want more above ground storage. Both pushed for dam-heightening efforts at Lake Kaweah and Lake Success.

"We've basically marched pretty well shoulder-to-shoulder," he said.

Both also would like to see an additional dam above Pine Flat on the Kings River, a sore spot for environmentalists who want to preserve the upper Kings as a wild, free-flowing river.

Another disagreement between Graham and Mills on the one side and environmentalists on the other is over the issue of how much more water can be conserved.

Graham and others believe ag has taken great strides on conservation. They point to things like drip irrigation technology, which delivers precise amounts to each plant.

But Graham believes ag conservation can only go so far.

"You can't say to ag, 'Put a brick in your toilet.' It doesn't work," he said.

Sometimes, environmentalists and urban interests coincide. Other times, they don't.

A good example is the issue of building new dams.

The Association of California Water Agencies, which includes urban and agricultural water districts, is unified in its support for more above-ground storage, Graham said.

Graham received a lifetime achievement award from ACWA last week.

Graham expressed concern that political wrangling is preventing long-term solutions to water problems "throughout the state."

"It's A-OK now, but that's because people did some long-term planning ... to make it happen," he said.

Mark Gilkey's greatest task as Graham's successor will be to trying to work through the environmental issues surrounding the state water project, according to Don Mills.

Gilkey agreed.

"How can we make the state water supplies more reliable and cost effective?" he said.

The reporter can be reached at 583-2432

(May 17, 2008)