1600 miles of lateral canals, like this one near El Centro, California provide water from the Colorado River to farm fields in the Imperial Valley. 

Largest irrigation district in North America makes agronomy in desert a multi-billion dollar enterprise

 

By Albert C. Jones
America, The Diversity Place

EL CENTRO, California — Mud clumps on your sneakers and footing is not sure in this irrigated field teeming with strait row after strait row of broccoli plants ready for harvest. Over that way, across the out-in-the-country road, in another field, it’s row after row of — to be precise — California Iceberg Lettuce.

This is the midwinter scenario in the Imperial Valley has replayed itself for nearly 100 years, even before the All-American Canal was dug, bringing water by irrigation ditches to the desert.

Imperial Valley, such is a grand name, which but for the system of canals and drainage ditches would be desert hard to inhabit by humans. Land speculators gave this region north of Mexico in southeastern California its name. Civil engineers, under the auspices of the Bureau of Reclamation, made agronomy not only possible but what has evolved into a multi-billion dollar industry.

“There are sixteen hundred miles of lateral canals and an equal number of drainage ditches that largely are unchanged since the All-American Canal was dug,” said Kevin Kelley, spokesman for the Imperial Irrigation District in El Centro. “The major difference is some of the canals are being lined with concrete to prevent seepage.”

Snowmelt in the Rocky Mountains and mountain streams form the headwaters of the Colorado River, which supplies16.4 million acre feet of water to Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona and California.

California gets its 4.4 million acre feet a year through the All-American Canal; 3.1 million acre feet or seventy percent goes to the Imperial Irrigation district and 1.3 million acre feet goes to the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. Synergy and choreography, even as the sun also rises, combine for the remarkable to behold.

All the workers in these two fields have already scored their second victory of the day with a victory over the sunrise. Their first victory is crossing the border at Mexicali in the wee hours of the morning, being picked up by buses in downtown Calexico, and then brought here for another day’s work in the farm fields near Brawley.
Cabbage, asparagus and carrots are also midwinter crops with peek harvesting in January and February.

Workers are delivered by bus. Some come in car, SUV and pick-up truck caravans for early start in fields. This well-rehearsed choreography takes place every harvesting day all over the Imperial Valley.

Floodlights shine from harvesting equipment before sunrise. Harvesting is somethng like a staged production, minus the music. Valley Fabrications of Salinas, California makes custom harvesting equipment for the fresh vegetable industry. The company’s Transfer Deck Harvesters are being used in this lettuce field.

Workers, wielding lettuce knives, chop, and then individually bag heads of lettuce. Most are wearing muck boots. Some wear waist-high waders, blue jeans, hoodies, straw hats and dust masks. Some cover their mouths with bandanas to guard from chemical exposure. Sophisticated machines with hydraulics and conveyor belts move freshly picked heads of lettuce from pickers’ hands to packing boxes.

The boxes are labeled with the familiar Green Giant.

Valley Fabrications also makes transfer systems. Rubber track shuttles boxes from harvester to trucks that carry produce to nearby cold storage facilities in Brawley and elsewhere in the Imperial Valley.

There are 500,000 irrigational acres in the Imperial Valley. 450,000 acres are producing crops, summer or winter. Some fields are planted three times a year. Corporate farms are aggregated near hub towns of Niland, Calpatria, Rockwood, Westmorland, Brawley, Moss, Alamorio, Onta, Anza, Fuller, Holtville, Imperial, El Centro, Heber, Brawley and Calexico.

The fabricated machinery, with beaming floodlight that allows for work in the dark, is the lead in the assembly line packing. Across the way, broccoli spears are being packed in boxes with the familiar Andy Boy Original Brand label.

Both Andy Boy — The Joy of A Healthy Life — and Green Giant distribute all across the country, shipping some produce around the world.

In late April, field workers in the Imperial Valley will begin warm-season production of Sweet Imperial onions, potatoes, sweet corn, bell peppers, chili peppers, cantaloupes, sugar beets, mixed melons and water watermelons. The Cooperative Extension Imperial County is the source for crop of statistics in the Imperial Valley.

Sugar beets are planted on 34,000 acres, averaging 40 tons per acre.

Alfalfa, seen stacked in bales all over the valley, covered by blue tarps, is the number one money crop. It is mostly shipped to California dairies; 173,000 acres of alfalfa are in production. The Imperial Valley is the largest alfalfa growing region in the world.

Wheat, the fourth-leading money crop with 44,000 acres planted, mostly goes to pasta producers. Bermuda grass and Sudan grass, hay by any other name, is mostly shipped to the Pacific Rim. Sudan grass is the third-leading crop with 66,000 acres in production.

The mark of distinction for the Imperial Irrigation District is that it is the largest irrigation district in North America.

“We have a unique system that is almost entirely gravity fed,” Kelley said.

The 82-mile All-American Canal flows downhill from the Colorado River, which forms the border between California and Arizona. The canal begins at Imperial Dam on the Colorado River, dropping 175 feet by the time it gets to the Westside Main Canal, north of El Centro.

“The Salton Sea is the lowest spot in the valley and repository for drainage and tail water coming from the land,” Kelley said. “The Salton Sea, which has no natural outlet, is becoming more and more salty.
“More than 400 species of birds have an ecological tie to the Salton Sea. It is an important stop of the Pacific flyway,” he said.

The Quantification Settlement Agreement from 2003 allows the Imperial Irrigation District to transfer part of its apportionment to other water district, including San Diego and Los Angeles. Under state law, the Quantification Settlement Agreement allows for “an innovative restoration-funding program . . . generating up to $300 million.”
Discussions to restore the Salton Sea, meaning reducing salt levels, take place during the annual Colorado Water Users Association meeting in Las Vegas. Cloud seeding, desalination and water transfer from the Gulf of Mexico have been discussed, but no definitive plan has been agreed to, Kelley said.

Cloud seeding would also bring relief to the Colorado River.

“The river is in draught,” Kelley said. “There has been less than two inches of rain in seven years. The irrigation district puts a great deal of effort into conserving water.”

However ironic, rain brings with it problems in the Imperial Valley.

“Farmers elsewhere pray for rain,” Kelley said. “Here in the Imperial Valley rain makes it harder to get into the fields. Stacked hay bales get wet. Rain depresses water sales.”

That 23-mile concrete lining of the All-American Canal will help reduce 60,000 acre feet a year lost to seepage. Most conservation improvements, however, are farm based.

“A lot of innovation happens on the farm,” he said. “Drip irrigation is a way to conserve. Some farms have built small reservoirs. Making the land dead level, as flat as it can be, helps conserve water through prevention of runoff.”

Kevin Kelley is spokesman for North America’s largest irrigation district, Imperial Irrigation District,which has its  headquarters in El Centro, California.