WATER WATCH: Conservation Redux

Less than a month ago, Southern California got a proper soaking. Storms drove rainfall levels to a full one-third above normal.

So it is sobering to discover that those rains left little behind except memories.

Hydrologists at the state Department of Water Resources say that unless California gets two inches of rain every week for the rest of the rainy season, the drought will drag through a sixth year. The odds against such a series of downpours are 5 to 1.

Water experts started into this rainy season saying that it would take a year of normal rainfall just for major reservoirs to break even.

The heavy rains did not help Southern California much because it imports most of its water from the north--and though streets were flooded in the south, the sun mostly kept shining in the north. One result is that reservoirs feeding the federal system that delivers 8.5 million acre-feet a year to farms in the Central Valley are not as full as they were a year ago.

Two lessons leap from current drought statistics.

One is that programs to slash water use in Southern California are still needed and may have to be even stricter before the year is over.

Another is that time is running out on efforts to reform state and federal water laws. California must have action on a bill by Sen. Bill Bradley (D-N.J.) to allow buying and selling of federal water and on one by Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Sylmar) to allow farmers, not water bureaucrats, to decide whether to sell surplus water to thirsty cities.