BUTTONWILLOW, CA -- In Buttonwillow Wednesday afternoon, the Buena Vista Water Storage District auctioned off 12,000 acre feet of stored water to the highest bidders.
And with no water expected from the state water project this year due to the drought, the bids for that water far exceeded the supply up for auction. "We had over 65,000 acre feet of water bid for, I think this shows the extent of the drought that we're under and the extraordinary measures need to take to preserve ag in Kern County," says Maurice Etchechury, engineer-manager, BVWSD.
"We thought we had a chance, but it doesn't look too good. We'll just have to go out and find something elsewhere," says, Donnie Rose, Webster Pistachios.
Bids for the water ranged from $600 to over $1,300 per acre foot, an indication of just how desperate farmers are for water this year. In comparison, state project water costs about $200 an acre foot.
Part of the proceeds from this water auction will help fund a program launched last month by the district where member growers will be paid 400 dollars for each acre of farmland they take out of production this year, as a means of stretching groundwater supplies into next year. "What I was trying to influence primarily was farmers planting cotton because the first date to plant is March 15. A lot of growers are pre-irrigating right now. We wanted to intervene in those decisions, so we had to act quickly.
The enrollment deadline was Tuesday and late word from the district Wednesday evening is that growers enrolled nearly 8,000 acres in the fallow land program, most of it cotton acreage, meaning the district will pay participating growers $3.1 million for taking their land out of production.
As for the water auction, district officials are reviewing each bid. Their intent is to restrict sales of the water to Kern County growers only.
And with no water expected from the state water project this year due to the drought, the bids for that water far exceeded the supply up for auction. "We had over 65,000 acre feet of water bid for, I think this shows the extent of the drought that we're under and the extraordinary measures need to take to preserve ag in Kern County," says Maurice Etchechury, engineer-manager, BVWSD.
"We thought we had a chance, but it doesn't look too good. We'll just have to go out and find something elsewhere," says, Donnie Rose, Webster Pistachios.
Bids for the water ranged from $600 to over $1,300 per acre foot, an indication of just how desperate farmers are for water this year. In comparison, state project water costs about $200 an acre foot.
Part of the proceeds from this water auction will help fund a program launched last month by the district where member growers will be paid 400 dollars for each acre of farmland they take out of production this year, as a means of stretching groundwater supplies into next year. "What I was trying to influence primarily was farmers planting cotton because the first date to plant is March 15. A lot of growers are pre-irrigating right now. We wanted to intervene in those decisions, so we had to act quickly.
The enrollment deadline was Tuesday and late word from the district Wednesday evening is that growers enrolled nearly 8,000 acres in the fallow land program, most of it cotton acreage, meaning the district will pay participating growers $3.1 million for taking their land out of production.
As for the water auction, district officials are reviewing each bid. Their intent is to restrict sales of the water to Kern County growers only.