California: One Big Reservoir of Drought : Endemic problem may require new systemic solutions

Finally, if belatedly, Southern California’s winter rainy season has begun. That’s the good news. Despite the traffic problems and cold weather they inevitably bring, rains are a welcome relief in a region enduring a six-year drought. The bad news is that the drought isn’t over--not by a long shot.

Virtually every indicator that meteorologists and other scientists use to try to determine how much rain might fall indicates that California, indeed all of the Far West, is well on the way toward a seventh dry year. Start with the most obvious fact: This year’s rains did not start in earnest until December. In a normal year rain begins falling heavily in November; last month California got only 15% of its normal rainfall.

And don’t forget that after six years of less-than-average rain all of California’s reservoirs are at record low levels, which means these early rains serve only to partially replenish them. The lack of stored water is one reason state officials announced last week that, in 1993, the State Water Project will deliver only 10% of the amount requested by Southern California’s Metropolitan Water District and other water agencies.

MISERY SHARED: California is not alone, either. Last week Nevada declared 14 of its 17 counties drought disaster areas. Even Seattle, which we Angelenos tend to think of as Soggy City, has imposed water-use restrictions because its reservoirs are low.

According to rainfall records, which have been kept for about the last 100 years, the worst drought the Far West has endured was a six-year dry spell in the 1930s. So a seventh year of drought would be a historic--and scary--record. But scientists who specialize in research that goes back even further than man’s records, such as studying tree rings and rock formations, have recently turned up evidence suggesting that the last 100 or so years have been wetter than normal in California and the rest of the West. In other words, our current drought may not be the anomaly we all fervently hope it is. This arid region just might be returning to a normal condition that is even drier than at present.

Of course, as scientists will be the first to tell you, that is just a theory and much research is needed before it can be accepted as fact. But all the scientific data being studied so carefully because of the drought serves a useful purpose. It reminds us that we live in a desert where water should never be taken for granted.

RAY OF HOPE: That is why one of the bright spots in our six-year dry spell is the fact that Southern Californians have been able to reduce water consumption hereabouts roughly 20% without mandatory rationing. We must all keep up the good work.

But prudence dictates that water officials not rely on people doing the right thing voluntarily. They must plan for the possibility that the scientific warnings are accurate and we are in for an even longer drought. Some long-term proposals to deal with a persistent water shortage are already on the drawing boards:

--Desalination plants, to make sea water usable, are already in operation in Santa Barbara and on Santa Catalina Island, and the MWD hopes to have a demonstration plant built near Huntington Beach by 1994.

--Los Angeles County water engineers are moving forward with studies for saving more of the rainwater that now flows out to sea through the concrete-lined Los Angeles River whenever big storms hit. The most ambitious plan would trap it in a fresh-water reservoir built adjacent to the port of Long Beach.

But those are long-term plans. In the short term, major agencies like the MWD and Los Angeles’ Department of Water and Power must prepare for the mandatory rationing that is sure to be necessary in a seventh year of drought. It’s a record none of us wants, but that every one of us must be prepared to live with.