No Fooling: Reserves 30% Below Last Year

Northern California water supply reservoirs have been rapidly depleted this year to meet California’s demand for water, due to the effects of record drought. In fact, the volume of water stored in these critical supply reservoirs is, collectively, 2.6 million-acre-feet (30 percent) less today then at this time last year. Despite this year’s average snow pack in the Sierra Mountains, the California Department of Water Resources has recently announced that water deliveries to the Bay Area, the Central Valley and to southern California "will be far below normal this year," due to a recent Federal court ruling which has significantly restricted pumping in the Sacramento/San Joaquin Delta.
"What this means is that we’ve essentially moved into a world where even in NORMAL years, we don’t have enough water," said Kevin L. Wattier, General Manager of the Long Beach Water Department. "Southern California is currently positioning itself for catosptrophic failure in the event of a protracted drought."
Earlier this month, during a joint Senate Committee hearing held in Sacramento, Roger Patterson, Assistant General Manager with the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (MWD), read a prepared statement into the record, stating that his agency "is rapidly depleting its existing water supply reserves with no relief in sight." The MWD wholesales imported water supplies to communities throughout southern California, who are dependent on these imported supplies. Fifty percent of Long Beach’s water supply is purchased from the MWD.
Just last week, the Long Beach Board of Water Commissioner renewed their call for immediate, extraordinary conservation. "We need to engineer a permanent lifestyle change in the way we all see and use our water, so that inefficient and wasteful uses are no longer tolerated by anyone," stated Bill Townsend, the Commission’s President. "The only way a successful effort is going to be sustained, is if we have all of Southern California on board."
Since June of last year, the Long Beach Board of Water Commissioners has implemented extraordinary conservation measures, including enforcement of new citywide restrictions on certain outdoor uses of water. These efforts have achieved an additional 8 percent reduction in water use citywide through February of this year.
The Long Beach Water Department is an urban, southern California retail water supply agency and the standard in water conservation and environmental stewardship.