PALM DESERT, Calif (AP) - In this desert playground, where gondolas carry resort guests to lakeside bistros and a man-made river flows through a shopping mall, Dave Twedt finds himself being forced to drill for water.
As land development manager for the brand-new Trilogy Golf Club at La Quinta, Twedt is looking for water to ensure his greens aren't brown when Tiger Woods and a host of elite golfers arrive this fall for the popular Skins Game. The club is spending more than $200,000 to drill into the aquifer far beneath the course.
"You don't have a whole lot of choices," said Twedt. "It's not like we'll be put out of business because, thank goodness, we can drill an irrigation well." For now, there is water underground for Trilogy and other courses to tap into. But the future of water in the Coachella Valley, a recreational and retirement mecca 110 miles east of Los Angeles, is far from certain.
This valley of 300 square miles, stretching from the former Rat Pack getaway of Palm Springs to the briny shores of the Salton Sea, is at the epicenter of an ongoing fight over water from the Colorado River.
California is being forced by the Interior Department to wean itself from its historic overuse of the river, which is shared by six other Western states. It was supposed to have closed a deal among four regional water agencies last year to redistribute the state's share of Colorado water. But the proposal fell through at the last minute, prompting the federal government to cut the amount of river water reaching the state.
In the Coachella Valley, where average rainfall is just 3 inches a year but per-family water usage is nearly three times the U.S. average, the impact is striking.
The Coachella Valley Water District has halted deliveries of Colorado water to about a dozen golf courses, at least one construction firm and a lake built for water-skiing amid a housing development.
"We've gone from being assured that we lived in this magical place where the rules of water didn't apply to now having, I think, a very appropriate wakeup call about the fact that we do live in the California desert," said Buford Crites, a 17 year member of the Palm Desert City Council. "People have lived in this false water utopia.' It was cheap and abundant water that transformed this desert - described by 19th-century explorer John Wesley Powell as "the most desolate region on the continent" - into a lush landscape of more than 100 golf courses and a rapidly growing number of luxurious neighborhoods decorated with waterfalls and lakes.
In this self-ordained "golf capital of the world," the cut in Colorado water has shocked golf-course managers as well as the development companies fueling sales of more than 2,000 new homes here each year.
"Because the club has not been properly forewarned and has not been given a reasonable amount of time to transition to a private water supply, there is a real possibility of incurring catastrophic damages," John Heckenlively, president of The Plantation, wrote April 30 to the water district.
That possibility is one courses didn't want to discuss. Several course managers, including Heckenlively, declined to comment on the water situation.
Golf courses are the selling point for many of the developers building posh, gated communities. The valley's population
rose 170 percent from about 121,000 in, 1980 to 330,100 in 2001, according to the Coachella Valley Economic Partnership.
Elsewhere in the and West, many communities have decided golf is a luxury they're willing to cut back on. Drought has forced Denver to close four of its seven public courses. By next year, new watering restrictions will force many Las Vegas courses to either take out some of their turf or let the grass turn brown.
Few regions, however, are as dependent on golf as the Coachella Valley. Last year, it helped attract 3.5 million visitors to the valley, who pumped an estimated $1 billion into the local economy, according to the Palm Springs Desert Resort Convention and Visitors Bureau.
'Tourism accounts for as much as three of every four dollars spent in the valley, said Tom Levy, a consultant and former general manager of the water district.
"You have to recognize that the major industry in the Coachella Valley is resort and recreation,' Levy said. "People wouldn't come to the valley just to play tennis, or in the numbers they do. It's our economy." When it comes to water, a typical course soaks up nearly enough every day to fill an Olympic swimming pool. About a dozen courses use reclaimed domestic sewer water to supplement their supplies. Others, including the popular Desert Willow course, use native plants instead of grass. But nearly every course draws from the underground aquifer that also supplies local drinking water. So much water is being sucked from the aquifer that the valley floor sinks more than an inch a year in spots.
The water district uses massive amounts of Colorado River water to resupply the aquifer, but deposits can't keep up with withdrawals.
The Colorado River cutback also has postponed the latest phase of a 3,200-home community and golf course built by construction giant Del Webb. Construction crews use Colorado water to moisten exposed dirt and keep it from swirling into a lung-choking cloud. A company spokesman declined to comment.
Meanwhile, fruit and vegetable growers, who use most of the valley's Colorado River water allotment, faced a crisis of their own. They are paying $15 million over five years - nearly 10 times the usual cost - to buy excess water from farmers in nearby Palo Verde to avoid a complete shutoff.
Mark Nickerson, general manager of a huge fanning operation at the shores of the Salton Sea, says the millions of dollars he and others have invested in underground drip systems pioneered by Israelis makes Coachella the most efficient farming region in the region if not the nation.
In the desert communities to the west, it's a different story. In ultrawealthy Indian Wells, lawns are a must. Water officials shake their heads at the grassy median strips that require repeated waterings.
Given that most of the water used by residential customers in the valley goes to outdoor use, such as landscaping, pools and fountains, Coachella Valley water officials are taking steps to curb urban water use. Anew landscaping ordinance taking effect June 1 requires new developments to use 25 less percent water than existing ones. The water board may also raise rates.
"It's an attempt to recognize we do live in a desert and water is not something we can take for granted," said Steve Robbins, general manager of the water district.
Water officials hold out hope that the valley and three other Southern California water agencies will reach an agreement to share the Colorado River, and secure enough water to supply farmers and recharge the aquifer for the next 35 years.
Failing that, there's the less-certain option that the Interior Department will take water from the farm-rich Imperial Valley to the south, and give it to the Coachella Valley. The department could do so if it decides that Imperial farms waste the precious resource since a third of irrigation water used there runs into the@ Salton Sea - a position backed by many in the Coachella Valley.
Regardless, Crites, who has held Palm Desert's rotating mayoralty three times, said that the days of going out and taking more water must end. There will be no more projects like Palm Desert's Desert Springs Marriott, where guests ride gondolas to feast on ahi steaks by the edge of a sprawling lake.
"That was done in Palm Desert at a different time - when people really believed we could pretend we were Hawaii,' Crites said. 'Mere was really no organized group saying the emperor had no clothes.'
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