MWD Has Too Much of a Good Thing--Reservoirs Brimming

Southern California’s major reservoirs are brimming near capacity, creating financial and engineering headaches for water officials who must now find a way to store or quickly sell the surplus.

Thanks to a cool summer, strong conservation efforts and extra water purchases made as a hedge against ongoing drought, the Metropolitan Water District has more water than it can keep behind its dams.

The high levels of water are a surprise even to water officials, who began the year fearing that supplies would be 20% to 30% less than anticipated demand.

Despite the effects of five years of drought, the MWD has been forced to dump millions of gallons of water daily into spreading grounds in the San Gabriel Valley, where it is allowed to percolate through the soil to the natural aquifers, where it can be stored and retrieved when needed.

“It’s awkward,” said MWD General Manager Carl Boronkay. “In these times (of drought) you fight like hell to get all the water you can . . . and then we end up with this weather” and a drastically reduced demand for water.

In Los Angeles, for instance, residents have reduced water usage by about 30%, even though emergency water restrictions require only a 15% cut back. The MWD imports water from the Colorado and Sacramento rivers for distribution through 27 member agencies in six Southern California counties from Ventura to the Mexican border and inland to Riverside.

“It was getting to be a concern,” Jay Malinowski, assistant chief of operations at the MWD, said of the abundant supplies.

If room cannot be made in the MWD’s two primary reservoirs--Lake Mathews and Lake Skinner--the agency could lose some of its Colorado River allotment, Malinowski said. Without a place to store incoming supplies, officials would be forced to let some the agency’s share of the river’s water just keep flowing down stream, he said.

Lake Mathews, the larger of the two, is now at 95.6% of capacity and Skinner is at 96.1% of capacity.

With the daily dumping in the spreading grounds, the fear of losing Colorado River supplies has been alleviated, said Malinowski. But the MWD and its partner, the State Water Project, still have to find a way to use or store the unusually high supplies at four other Southland reservoirs.

The State Water Project’s four major Southern California reservoirs are also near capacity: Castaic is at 92.5%, Perris 94.4%, Pyramid 97% and Silverwood 97.1%.

Despite the high water, the state is still suffering from prolonged drought. Last winter’s rainfall was 70% of normal and the state’s major reservoirs in Northern California--which supply much of the state--remain far below normal levels.

MWD officials need to drain their reservoirs significantly before the winter rains and runoff come again. Malinowski said the MWD wants to put 50,000 acre-feet--enough for 100,000 families for a year--into the ground in the coming months.

The excessive supplies are also causing some financial problems for the MWD.

Fearing drought-related shortages, MWD officials in April contracted to purchase 215,000 acre-feet from the state water bank at $300 an acre-foot.

Much of that water will be sold to local agencies for ground water storage at bargain winter rates of $130 an acre-foot--a potential loss of about $36 million to the agency.

In addition, the MWD adopted last winter, the agency pays incentives to agencies that use less water and penalizes those that use more than their allotment.

So far, only one agency--Beverly Hills--has used more than its allocation and the others have collected $26 million in rebates.

On Monday, a committee of the MWD’s Board of Directors recommended that the agency end its rebates on Oct. 1 and begin offering its low-cost winter rates for ground storage immediately in an effort to lower the reservoirs.