Official: Imported Water Supply Sources Rapidly Depleting

Roger Patterson, Assistant General Manager for Stragtegic Water Initiatives at the Metropolitan Water District (MWD) of Southern California, provided testimony to State Senators at a joint informational hearing of the Natural Resources and Water Committee and the Budget and Fiscal Review, Subcommittee No. 2, on the water supply outlook for his agency and "the increasing precariousness of Southern California's water picture." The MWD imports, treats and sells water to local, Southern California water suppliers and their 18 million customers. The Long Beach Water Department purchases nearly half of its water from the MWD.

During the joint Committee held on March 11th in Sacramento, Mr. Patterson read a prepared statement into the record. The following is an excerpt from that statement:

"Despite a healthy snow pack and a series of wet storms, deliveries from the State Water Project in 2008 are dramatically curtailed. Deliveries could be impacted further due to the potential listing of another fish species, the Long Fin Smelt. Listing of additional species is also possible. Metropolitan is rapidly depleting its existing water supply reserves with no relief in sight. This depletion of reserves is occurring despite significant long-term water use efficiency investments (conservation, recycling and groundwater treatment) that have been made over the past two decades. Last month, Metropolitan’s Board of Directors approved a method of allocating water when our reserves are no longer available to avoid region-wide shortages. We have already reduced deliveries to our agricultural customers by 30 percent. In San Diego County, avocado farmers are severely pruning their trees, a technique known as stunting, as a method of keeping them alive on minimal amounts of water in hopes that the orchards could be productive again in the future."

In June of last year, the Long Beach Board of Water Commissioners made a Declaration of Immediate and Extraordinary Water Conservation, followed by a Declaration of an Imminent Water Supply Shortage in September, triggering certain citywide water use restrictions, enforcement of those restrictions and aggressive public communication with its customers on the need to immediately reduce water use, particularly outdoors. These actions were the direct result of climate conditions, a rapid depletion of statewide water supply reserves and the imminent interruption in the supply of water from the Bay Delta are