Unprecedented water restrictions are in store for about 6 million Southern Californians, a sign of deepening drought in counties that depend on water piped from the state’s parched reservoirs.
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The Metropolitan Water District’s board voted unanimously today to require six major water providers and the dozens of cities and local districts they supply to impose one of two options: limit residents to outdoor watering once a week or reduce total water use below a certain target.
The water providers must have plans to police their customers, and if they fail to impose the restrictions, they could face fines of $2,000 for every extra acre-foot of water that exceeds their monthly allocation limits, starting in June, according to Metropolitan.
The restrictions target parts of Los Angeles, Ventura and San Bernardino counties that rely heavily on water from drought-stricken Northern California rivers transported south via the State Water Project.
“At this time, a third of our region, 6 million Southern Californians in parts of Los Angeles, Ventura, San Bernardino counties, face a very real and immediate water stress challenge,” said Metropolitan Water District General Manager Adel Hagekhalil. “Today these areas rely on extremely limited supplies from Northern California. And there is not enough supply available to meet the normal demands in these areas.”
Cutting back outdoor watering to one day a week would be a big change for the arid, densely populated areas, where many people irrigate their lawns and gardens.
Southern Californians have heard for decades about the dangers of drought, but per-person residential water use has increased in the past two years, despite the severe drought. Experts say conservation wavers in the region because restrictions are largely voluntary — and their water never seems to run out.
“This is insane but not unexpected,” Peter Kraut, a council member from the San Fernando Valley city of Calabasas told the Metropolitan board, which is composed of 38 city and local district officials. “I’m appalled that a change this drastic is happening in such a short period of time.”
“This plan will result not just in brown grass but in killing countless trees. The damage to our environment will take decades to repair,” Kraut added.
Today’s mandate is the first outdoor watering restriction imposed by the giant water-import agency, which supplies 19 million people in California. More stringent restrictions may come later, Metropolitan officials warned: The water providers must also prepare to ban all outdoor watering as early as September, if necessary, as California suffers one of its driest periods on record.
The six affected water suppliers are Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, Las Virgenes Municipal Water District, Upper San Gabriel Valley Municipal Water District and Three Valleys Municipal Water District — all in Los Angeles County — and the Calleguas Municipal Water District in Ventura County and the Inland Empire Utilities Agency in San Bernardino County.
About 13 million other Southern Californians are unaffected by the order because they aren’t as dependent on water imported via the State Water Project. They receive imports from the Colorado River, which largely are sent to Orange, San Diego and Imperial counties.
Metropolitan has been working to increase the number of customers who can receive Colorado River water to reduce reliance on the hard-pressed state aqueduct. The Colorado River, however, also is facing extreme drought, and deliveries to California, Nevada and Arizona are being cut back under an agreement signed by the states in December.
How much each agency must curtail customers’ water use under Metropolitan’s order depends on how much each relies on the state aqueduct compared to other sources, such as groundwater or recycled sewage.
Water agencies are still figuring out the details. Some local water providers urged the board at today’s meeting to let them continue watering sports fields and parks more frequently so the turf doesn’t dry out.
Two of the six depend almost entirely on state aqueduct supplies — the Las Virgenes Municipal Water District, which serves 75,000 residents west of Los Angeles, and the Calleguas Municipal Water District, which supplies 19 agencies and cities in southeast Ventura County.
Some communities served by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, Inland Empire Utilities Agency and the Upper San Gabriel Valley Municipal Water District have other sources that may buffer the blow of the new mandate. Los Angeles DWP spokesperson Ellen Cheng did not respond to multiple inquiries about which parts of the city will be affected.
Some of the affected agencies, such as Las Virgenes in Calabasas and nearby western Los Angeles County cities, already have cracked down on residents by imposing new escalating rates and penalties, with mixed success. Others, including Los Angeles DWP, which has limited outdoor watering to three days a week since 2009, have not added any new restrictions during the current drought.
If only our reservoirs were used as planned, and not to release large amounts of water into the ocean for the fish with little evidence that the plan actually works. This is a result of mismanagement of our reservoirs by the state for years.
What you saying is true however the real reason this happening is lack of rain, we had a good month in December and that was it, very little since then. If the reservoirs don’t get filled, rationing happens.
The stupid MWD should be harassing Sacramento to explain why we voters OKed a 2.7 billion dollar expansion of our water system years ago but NOTHING has been done yet because the environwhackos control Sacramento. Just keep pulling the “D” handle, fools!
20 years ago I said………ILLEGALS were going to cause a lot of problems in this state, such as: bad schools because they dont speak English and hold others back, more traffic, less gas, water and electricity, higher priced homes, worse health care. You cant tell me that millions of extra people and no new infrastructure are not having an impact on this state. The govt KNOWS this. Until THEY do something about this, they can go pound sand.
It was only yesterday that the lead article was about how the state is NOT going to authorize a desalination plant that would help with the situation. Today an article about the consequences of accumulated actions or inactions as the case may be. Top two priorities for a healthy economy – low cost power and water, after that other infrastructure and reducing debt.
People are getting what they voted for. Maybe eventually “the people” will come to their collective senses and start to vote on a more rational, logical basis. Lots of money in the state, all of the issues are self inflicted.
And why do we not yet have a building moratorium statewide?
Here is an idea. Why not build a humongous on demand desal plant near Eureka which is about 80 miles from Lake Shasta? Raise the dam height 20 feet and feed the desal water into the Lake. The lake drains into the Sacramento River which flows 2/3rds of the way down the length of CA. I rest my case.