Southern California continues to face significant water supply challenges in 2010 and beyond.

As summer temperatures rise, it’s critical that residents and businesses continue to conserve water.  Thanks to these efforts and Southern Californians’ commitment to water conservation, the region’s water reserves – while still low from several dry years – have improved.

Metropolitan’s main sources of imported supplies remain restricted.  The Colorado River is experiencing another dry year with overall precipitation about 75 percent of normal. 

In late June the state Department of Water Resources issued this year’s final water supply allocation of 50 percent from the State Water Project. This means that Metropolitan will receive just 50 percent of the water it is entitled to receive as one of the state water contractors.  This 50 percent was an increase from the initial five percent allocation earlier this year, which was the lowest on record.  But despite that increase, we continue to have a serious water supply situation.

In the past, California relied on wet winters to replenish water reserves. Today, winter storms don’t improve the current water shortage significantly because of pumping restrictions in the Delta to protect various endangered fish species.

Water that Metropolitan could normally count on receiving is no longer available because of these restrictions. It will remain that way until the crisis in the Delta is fixed, which will take several years. In the meantime, the state faces ongoing water shortages for millions of acres of agriculture and 25 million Californians, from the Bay Area to Southern California.

During the past three years, Metropolitan has tapped its reserves to maintain deliveries to its 26 member agencies and 19 million Southern Californians. Our reserves are down by about50 percent. With water uncertainties facing the state, the challenge ahead is to continue to lower demand and stretch our reserve supplies as much as possible for use in dry years and in case of an emergency such as a catastrophic earthquake. 

Because of these ongoing, complex water supply and delivery problems, Metropolitan’s board of directors, in April, approved a water supply allocation plan for an unprecedented second year in 2010.

There is much to be done.  We all have to adjust to the prospect of reduced and uncertain supplies from Northern California and to recognize that it will take new investments – statewide and in this region –to build a more reliable water system.

Learn about other reservoirs around the state at the California Dept. of Water Resources.

Learn more about the critical water supply situation in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.

Roll over each image to display receding water levels.

Extraordinary conservation would help preserve storage reserves like those at Diamond Valley Lake, the Southland's largest reservoir.

Extraordinary conservation would reduce demands throughout Metropolitan’s service area, helping to preserve the region’s dry-year storage reserves. Actions that reduce demands now could avoid implementation of, or reduce the magnitude of supply allocations in 2009 or 2010 if dry conditions persist.

Click on the photo to view the advertisement. Using 2005 photography of the water levels at Diamond Valley Lake, this ad features the use of computer generated imagery to compare these to lake levels today, creating a very dramatic demonstration of our decreasing water reserves.