Is Drought History? Yes and No

Water experts measured 83 inches of snow on this frosty peak Thursday and declared that the snowpack in the Eastern Sierra--stuck at a pitiful 7% of normal just 34 days ago--had climbed to an impressive 85%.

Down in the flatlands, meanwhile, officials of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power reported that their customers had surpassed expectations and reduced water consumption last month by 29.2% over 1986 levels.

Still more good news flowed from Sacramento, where state Department of Water Resources officials announced Thursday that they had pooled enough water in their emergency drought bank and would buy no more.

With all these rosy reports, water officials--aware that the public might consider the drought a dying issue--pointed out it is more complicated than that.

As the DWP’s assistant general manager, James F. Wickser, said, “One wet month does not erase the effects of four previous years of drought.”

Still, talk of rationing and other water restrictions seemed somehow ridiculous up on Mammoth Mountain. From the DWP’s measuring station at an elevation of 9,600 feet, the world appeared smothered in snow.

But appearances can be deceiving, as the mountain visit proved Thursday.

As skiers in neon-colored parkas whizzed by, DWP hydrographers stuck a stainless steel pole into a drift, extracted a core sample of snow and weighed the sample on a primitive-looking scale to determine its water content.

“It looks real good,” said Ron Taylor, a bearded veteran of snow surveying and chief hydrographer for the DWP’s northern district. “And sure, we’re happy with the 85% reading. But coming on the heels of four years of drought, it just isn’t that spectacular.”

DWP scientists in Los Angeles, taking Taylor’s readings and others collected along a 150-mile stretch of the mountain range, confirmed that assessment. They calculated that the Eastern Sierra would produce a respectable 306,500 acre-feet of runoff this spring--or 74% of normal. But much of that melting moisture, they said, will vanish before reaching the DWP reservoirs used to store water before it is shipped by aqueduct 350 miles south to Los Angeles.

“The trouble is, the (stream) banks are so dry that you lose a lot because it seeps right down into the ground,” said Taylor, whose father was one of the first hydrographers to take DWP measurements in the Eastern Sierra. “So a lot of this water, we just won’t see.”

There are other limitations as well. In the past, the snowdrifts cloaking the Eastern Sierra provided about 70% of the water used annually by Los Angeles. Local ground water and imported water purchased from the Metropolitan Water District accounted for the rest.

But court rulings and other decisions unfavorable to the DWP have reduced the amount of runoff the city may take from the mountain range. For two years, a court injunction has prohibited Los Angeles from diverting water from four streams that feed Mono Basin, and limits on ground water pumping have cut the supply normally shipped south from Owens Valley.

As a result, the DWP expects to take only as much as 35% of its supply--or 200,000 acre-feet--from the Eastern Sierra. That is the same amount brought south from the Owens Valley last year. DWP hopes to make up the rest with additional purchases from the MWD.

That, however, is also problematical, because the MWD’s supply of water--which comes from the State Water Project, has been reduced. MWD officials hope to hear today that their reductions have been eased somewhat by the state, and that will undoubtedly brighten the picture for the Southland.

Calculations of the statewide snowpack picture--a reading based on measurements taken at 311 Alpine stations--are not complete. But state officials predict that the total will be about 75% of normal, an increase over February that will allow them to deliver more water to the MWD and other urban customers than they initially promised.

“It’s a complicated picture,” said Jerry Gewe, a DWP engineer. “It’s hard to explain to the average water consumer.”

Perhaps so, but the average water consumer in Los Angeles apparently understood the severity of the drought and responded with gusto, at least during March, the first month of the city’s mandatory rationing program.

As extraordinary rainfall deluged the Southland, causing floods and traffic accidents, residents cut usage by record levels, stunning local water officials.

While the city’s rationing plan required residents to reduce usage by 10% from pre-drought levels in 1986, they cut consumption by 29.2%, the DWP reported.

Even when adjusted for the heavy rains that made it easy for homeowners to reduce landscape watering, the figures show that residents still reduced usage by 22.8% “It means there are a lot of short showers out there,” Gewe said. “People have gotten the message.”

The savings in March are higher than the 19% conservation effort that residents delivered during the 1978 drought, when they also were asked to reduce consumption by 10%.

Other big Southland cities conserved by similar amounts in March, but not all water officials were as encouraged by the results. A survey of 11 cities conducted by the MWD showed water use was cut by an average of about 31% in March, compared to the same month in 1990.

“We’re requiring a 31% reduction every month for the rest of the year and we don’t expect six inches of rain every month,” said Duane Georgeson, assistant general manager of the MWD. “It’s going to take a lot more work to achieve 31% for the rest of the year,” he said.

In Sacramento, the deputy director of the state Department of Water Resources said the emergency water bank established by Gov. Pete Wilson on Feb. 15 had purchased 475,000 acre-feet of water and was negotiating to buy another 300,000 acre-feet.

Bob Potter said the bank was accepting no more offers from farmers interested in idling their land and selling their water because the bank has enough water to meet the needs of drought-afflicted cities and farm belts this year.

About the only gloomy news on the drought front Thursday came from meteorologists, who reported that a powerful storm forecast to swirl down from the Gulf of Alaska this week had fizzled.

The storm drenched Oregon in recent days but is expected to bring relatively light rainfall to California, meteorologist Bill Mork said during a daily water briefing at the Department of Water Resources in Sacramento.

TAKING MEASURE OF THE SNOW

Snow depth and water content data, collected a Mammoth Mountain and 310 other locations in California, help officials estimate runoff into reservoirs. The Eastern Sierra runoff that feeds L.A. through the Owens Valley and the aqueduct is at 306,000 acre-feet, or about three-quarters of normal. But L.A. will get only about 200,000 acre-feet because of court-imposed restrictions. Eastern Sierra snowpack water content As of April 1: 85% of normal 1990: 43% of normal 1989: 71% of normal 1988: 40% of normal 1987: 47% of normal 1986: 182% of normal Source: L.A. Department of Water and Power