Wilson Orders Panel to Devise State Water Plan

Gov. Pete Wilson stopped short today of formally declaring a drought emergency but ordered the creation of a task force of top water officials to deal with the state’s critical scarcity of water.

Wilson has been under pressure to declare a drought emergency, which would give him broad authority over water supplies no matter who owns them. Although he declined to exercise that authority, he left open the option of invoking an emergency in the near future.

“I could usurp the authority of local officials by declaring an emergency,” Wilson said. “(But) in order to invoke this act, there must be a finding that local officials cannot fulfill their responsibility.”

Wilson said the task force, under David Kennedy, appointed director of the state Department of Water Resources in 1983, will devise a comprehensive strategy for dealing with a worst case scenario of water shortages.

The state water board planned to decide next week whether to impose rationing. At a hearing earlier this week, local agencies told the board they wanted to keep control of their own water and would fight any across-the-board rationing.

Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley today urged the City Council to impose a 10% cut in water use by March 1. It would increase to 15% on May 1.

Bradley’s action came as the Metropolitan Water District began enforcing a 17% cut in the water it supplies to cities and other local distributors in Southern California.

The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power reported earlier that snowfall around its reservoirs in Mono and Inyo Counties in the eastern Sierra ranges from 7% to 16% of normal.

The state’s own monthly measurement of snow and snow water content in the central Sierra Thursday found the situation comparable to the 1976-77 drought.