WATER: THIS TIME IT’S SERIOUS

The long-feared water crunch is at hand. Southern California’s century-old practice of tapping the Colorado River virtually at will is expected to come to an end in 1990. This probably will be the last year that the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California will be able to draw from Lake Havasu as much water as it can pump through its 242-mile-long aqueduct. For the first time since the historic seven-state Colorado River Compact was signed in 1922, the three lower basin states--California, Arizona and Nevada--are expected to consume every last drop of their entire allocation of 7.5 million acre-feet of water.

In coming years, Metropolitan, which is the wholesale water supplier to this region of 14 million, will see its 1.2 million acre-foot Colorado supply dwindle to a guaranteed share of 550,000 acre-feet. This means an approximate loss equivalent to the residential needs of a million families. (Farm districts, with a higher priority water right than Metropolitan, consume the other 3.85 million acre-feet of California’s Colorado River allocation.)

The list of the region’s water woes grows and grows. The city of Los Angeles is taking more water from Metropolitan because of cutbacks in its own system; the state may limit Southern California exports from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta because of environmental damage caused by pumping; California now is in its fourth consecutive dry year, which is putting stress on almost everyone’s water supply, and Southern California is growing by about 350,000 residents each year.

The Colorado limit is a milestone, however. Arizona is taking more of its share of the Colorado through its new aqueduct, and the state is likely to insist that any new and unexpected--depending on successive heavy snowfall winters in the Rockies--Colorado surpluses be held in storage in Lakes Mead and Powell to safeguard its supply for future years. Up until now Metropolitan has been drawing on such surpluses. The Upper Colorado River Basin states of Wyoming, Colorado, Utah and New Mexico do not use all of their 7.5 million acre-feet of the river, which is divided at Lee’s Ferry, Ariz. But the secretary of the interior says that nonetheless the lower basin states--and that’s us--cannot exceed their own 7.5 million limit.

Southern California now must undertake major new initiatives to save water. Metropolitan’s agreement with farmers in the Imperial Valley, whereby it will finance conservation facilities in exchange for the water farmers save, is a good example. Metropolitan and Kern County have an important water-banking project planned. And the new State Water Conservation Coalition should be supported in its quest for tough statewide water conservation standards and management practices, including restrictions on watering lawns and gardens.

Southern California has long been a desert. But for the first time in modern history, the region will have to adjust its water-consuming habits accordingly.