California water officials approve voluntary cutbacks by growers

By Dan Whitcomb LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - California water regulators on Friday approved a plan by some of the state's most senior water rights holders to voluntarily cut water use by 25 percent in exchange for assurances that they would not face further curtailments during the growing season. Under the first-of-its-kind agreement, so-called riparian growers in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta who participate in the program have agreed to either reduce water diversions by 25 percent or fallow one-quarter of their land, said Felicia Marcus, chair of the State Water Resources Control Board. Riparian land borders natural waterways such as rivers or streams and the roughly 4,000 growers with such farmland in the delta hold some of California's priority or most senior, and typically inalienable, water rights.

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