MWD OKs Plans for Dealing With Drought in Sierra

Short-term proposals for continued dry years and long-range plans to deal with a water supply under heavy pressure from population growth were approved Tuesday by the Metropolitan Water District’s board of directors.

Warning that “a severe drought exists” in the Sierra Nevada watersheds that supply Southern California with water, the directors approved a “Drought ‘88” plan calling for a voluntary 10% water reduction in the districts that comprise the MWD. The MWD supplies water to Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego and Riverside counties.

The city of Los Angeles last month enacted two water conservation laws, one to reduce sewer flow and one to save water because of drought conditions in the Sierra Nevada.

Voluntary Limits

The MWD will spend $1 million on a conservation plan featuring voluntary limits on watering, proposed legislation limiting water use by Southland cities, and distribution of 100,000 kits with shower-flow restricters, a toilet water conservation device and dye tablets to find leaks. The kits will be given to member water agencies, which will distribute them to customers.

“The state is facing a grim situation, with the prospect of a long summer and autumn still ahead, low carry-over storage at the end of summer and the possibility of a third drought year in 1989,” an MWD staff report said.

In an analysis of district water supplies, the staff concluded that the flow from the Colorado River, Southern California’s major source, is in fairly good shape. “The Colorado River is experiencing approximately 85% of normal runoff and the Bureau of Reclamation reservoirs are essentially full,” the report said. The federal Bureau of Reclamation manages the Colorado River.

Less Snow Than Usual

But small runoff from light Northern California mountain snow is reducing water in the California Water Project, which brings water from the Feather River, in the far Northern California mountains, down through the Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys and into the Southern California plain.

The staff warned of cutbacks to residential, industrial and commercial users, as well as farmers, and said, “under a worst-case scenario, MWD could face a supply shortfall of 500,000 acre-feet during 1989.” An acre-foot is enough water to supply a family of four for a year.

MWD supplies almost 2 million of the 3.7 million acre-feet needed in Southern California, with the rest coming from local sources such as wells or the city of Los Angeles’ Owens Valley aqueduct.

The report noted that Los Angeles city officials expect a drop from 360,000 acre-feet a year to 325,000 from the aqueduct “if the present extreme dry conditions recur in 1989.”

Less for Agriculture

The directors also approved a conservation proposal that would authorize reductions to agricultural users next year, if the drought continues. That would be done to permit uninterrupted delivery of water to urban areas.

For the long run, the board approved measures designed to assure enough water for a population that officials said was growing at a rate of 400,000 a year.

One dealt with the threat of pollution to vast, natural underground water basins that figure in district plans to store huge amounts of water from wet years to use in dry years.

Directors voted to spend $150,000 for the MWD share of a study of one of the biggest problem basins, the Chino Groundwater Basin in Riverside County. The rest will be paid by the Santa Ana Watershed Project Authority.

Some of the land above the basin has long been polluted by dairy herds and farming and, the report said, when the MWD begins storing water in the basin, the polluted water level will rise and spread.

Previously, district scientists had warned that Chino and other underground storage basins were becoming polluted.

In addition to working with the Santa Ana Watershed Project Authority on Chino basin cleanup, the MWD is searching for other underground water storage areas, including going as far away as the Arvin area of Kern County.