State Seeking to Require Emergency Drought Plans

Even as the Metropolitan Water District was scaling back its rationing program in Los Angeles, state water officials were taking steps in Sacramento to require all urban water agencies to prepare an emergency plan for future droughts.

Department of Water Resources Director David Kennedy, who also heads Gov. Pete Wilson’s “drought action team,” said the governor and state water officials are pushing legislation to require urban water agencies to “develop written plans to address contingencies of up to a 50% reduction in local water supplies.”

The legislation would require each agency to submit its plan by Dec. 31, 1991, and to update it at least once every five years. Kennedy said 60 of the state’s 300 urban local water agencies, or about 20%, failed to respond after Wilson asked water agencies earlier this year to submit plans for coping with “ongoing water shortages.” He said a third of those that responded produced plans that were inadequate.