Local News in Brief : Water Proposals Protested by MWD
The Metropolitan Water District formally objected Monday to a staff-level recommendation from the state water board to reserve more water for the Northern California environment, saying that would mean “drought conditions every year” for the Southland.
“We don’t think this is fair or realistic,” said information officer Jay Malinowski of the MWD, which serves Los Angeles and five other counties. “You don’t institutionalize drought.”
The staff of the State Water Resources Control Board has proposed that the amount of Northern California water shipped to Southern California cities and the San Joaquin Valley be limited to the amount available in 1985, the last wet year before California’s two-year drought.
The water board staff also proposed to set aside 1.5 million acre-feet of water a year to maintain fisheries in the Delta. That would limit the amount of water available to urban Southern California and San Joaquin Valley agriculture in the April-July period.
The MWD’s petition asked the water board to recall the recommendations by its staff and hold new hearings on the issue.
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