"The U.S. government's proposal to use the canal to deliver water to Mexico doesn't sit well with farmers and officials in the Imperial Valley."
"CALEXICO, Calif. -- What's in a name? When it comes to the All-American Canal, apparently everything.
Built in the 1930s, the 80-mile-long canal brings water from the Colorado River to the farmland of the Imperial Valley, transforming a rocky desert in California's southeast corner into one of the world's most bountiful agricultural regions. It replaced a canal in Mexico that once ferried water west and supplied farmers on both sides of the border.
By building a new canal entirely in the U.S., Imperial Valley farmers and landowners, and the politicians who supported them, were asserting independence from their southern neighbor and, indirectly, claiming dominance over the river.
Now, nearly eight decades later, the U.S. government has called for using the All-American Canal to deliver water to Mexico via what engineers call a turnout at Calexico -- in effect, a ditch leading to the Mexicali Valley and the Tijuana aqueduct.
The idea does not sit well with farmers and officials in the Imperial Valley who believe that powerful outsiders are again ignoring the valley's hard-fought water rights, this time in an effort to improve relations with the Mexican government."
Tony Perry reports for the Los Angeles Times November 26, 2012.
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