Nevada County Farmer Says Irrigation District Has Nearly Bankrupted Him

NEVADA COUNTY (CBS13) — The owner of a farm that's been around for seven decades says he's on the verge of bankruptcy because an irrigation district failed to fix a leaky pipe.

George Loftus says his 72-year-old farm looks more like a graveyard after not getting sufficient water in the past two years. His cherry orchard is gone.

"I had blueberries, which have all died. I had raspberries, they've all died," he said. "I've lost over 400 cherry trees, 110 peach trees—I had 400,000 plants in the ground when this happened."

A leak in the irrigation to his farm was causing damage to a Rough and Ready highway, so the Nevada Irrigation District shut off the water and told Loftus it was his pipe to fix.

"The history of his service is so old and undocumented, that we can't resolve a number of issues that surround the service."

But a dispute over who actually owned the pipe kept the water off even longer, killing off most of Loftus' crops while he waited.

"We provided an opportunity for Mr. Loftus to come with a dump truck and take water out of the canal and take it to the farm until we were able to fix the service."

Eventually the district did fix the pipe, but not until they say Loftus came forwards.

"Had Mr. Loftus communicated with us after the shutdown notice, we would have moved to make those repairs, or have him make those repairs at that time. But he didn't do that until May."

That was six months after the water was shut off.

Loftus says he came forwards, but nobody listened.

"I went through two general managers, and two maintenance managers, and the president of the board—and all of them have refused to help me," Loftus said.

Since then, he's had to shut down most of his farm, lay off his workers and even sell off his equipment to stay afloat.

"I've had physical problems, mental problems. I'm financially under," Loftus said. I want an answer out of NID, and I want my farm back.

Loftus and hundreds of supporters say they will be at Wednesday's board meeting to try and reach a resolution. If not, he'll be filing a lawsuit next month.