One Imperial Valley Farm Family Uses More Water (@ $20/Acre-foot) Than Vegas, Nearly All For Hay
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By far the largest users of the river are five members of the Abatti family, whose companies used an estimated 260,000 acre-feet in 2022, about 3% of the Colorado River’s entire flow in the Lower Basin. Most of the water they use goes to growing hay. Southern Nevada, which relies on the Colorado River for almost all of its water supply, used about 220,000 acre-feet that year, much of which goes to serve over 2 million people in the Las Vegas metropolitan area.
In the 1920s, their grandfather, Battista Abatti, arrived in the Imperial Valley and started a dairy farm. More than a century later, his grandson Alex Abatti Jr. used an estimated 82,000 acre-feet in 2022, making him the largest individual water user in the Valley. Alex Abatti, like some of the other large farmers, owns related seed, fertilizer, and hay processing, marketing and export businesses.
He declined an interview request and keeps a low profile. “He’s the big whale lurking underwater who rarely surfaces,” said one local water official. His cousin Mike Abatti, who has waged a decadelong legal battle with the water district over the capping of farmers’ water allocations, used about 46,000 acre-feet of Colorado River water in 2022, according to our estimates — roughly equal to the municipal supply of Long Beach, California. That’s nearly double previous reports of Mike Abatti’s water use drawn from documents filed in those lawsuits. Neither Mike Abatti nor other Abatti relatives responded to requests for comment.
While agriculture consumes the vast majority of the water used here, most of the crops are eaten by livestock. Sixteen of the top Imperial Valley families mostly use their water to grow hay, which accounts for an estimated 685,000 acre-feet a year. That’s more than four times the amount that goes to the 1.4 million people served by San Diego’s water district.
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https://projects.propublica.org/california-farmers-colorado-river/