California Requires 6 Million to Cut Water Use
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Southern California’s gigantic water supplier took the unprecedented step of requiring about 6 million people to cut their outdoor watering to one day a week as drought continues to plague the state.
The board of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California declared a water shortage emergency and required the cities and water agencies it supplies to implement the cutback on June 1 and enforce it or face hefty fines.
“We don’t have enough water supplies right now to meet normal demand. The water is not there,” Metropolitan Water District spokesperson Rebecca Kimitch said. “This is unprecedented territory. We’ve never done anything like this before.”
The Metropolitan Water District uses water from the Colorado River and the State Water Project to supply 26 public water agencies that provide water to 19 million people, or 40% of the state’s population.
But record dry conditions have strained the system, lowering reservoir levels, and the State Water Project — which gets its water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta — has estimated it will only be able to deliver about 5% of its usual allocation this year.
January, February and March of this year were the driest three months in recorded state history in terms of rainfall and snowfall, Kimitch said.
The Metropolitan Water District said that the 2020 and 2021 water years had the least rainfall on record for two consecutive years. In addition, Lake Oroville, the State Water Project’s main reservoir, reached its lowest point last year since being filled in the 1970s.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom has asked people to voluntarily reduce their water consumption by 15%, but so far residents have been slow to meet that goal.
Several water districts have instituted water conservation measures.
The Metropolitan Water District restrictions apply to areas of Los Angeles, Ventura and San Bernardino counties that rely mostly on state water supplied through the district, including some parts of Los Angeles city. Mainly urban areas are impacted.
The MWD’s client water agencies must implement either the one-day-a-week outdoor use restriction or find other ways of making equivalent reductions in water demand, Kimitch said.