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A federal court has curtailed water deliveries from northern California due to environmental factors in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. And, after a record dry spring that dramatically curtailed snow runoff from the Sierra Nevada mountains, Governor Schwarzenegger declared an official statewide drought on June 4.
Following the Governor’s action, the Metropolitan board of directors issued a Water Supply Alert on June 10 for its six-county service area, urging local jurisdictions to adopt and implement water conservation ordinances and to significantly increase efforts and programs to conserve water.
The Colorado River, the other major source of imported supplies for Metropolitan, has experienced drought conditions for eight of the last nine years.
Since the drought in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Metropolitan enacted a plan to improve water supplies during dry conditions. The Integrated Resources Plan called for increasing Metropolitan’s ability to store wet-year surplus supplies from the Colorado River and Northern California’s Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
The goal has been to increase reserves. As of 2007, enough water in reserve was available to help Metropolitan withstand up to three successive dry years.
Worsening environmental conditions in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta now challenge Metropolitan’s ability to replenish reserves in wet years. Prolonged dry conditions in California have reduced available supplies.
Metropolitan has tapped its reserves to maintain deliveries to its 26 member agencies. But the reserves are not unlimited. With water uncertainties facing Southern California, the challenge ahead is to lower demand and stretch our reserve supplies as much as possible.
Read the Metropolitan Board letter adopting the Water Supply Alert Resolution.
Read “Dealing with Drought,” the new publication from the Association of California Water Agencies (ACWA) about drought impacts around the state and how to become “low-flow" consumers. |