A daily compilation of significant news articles and comment
February 14, 2008
2. Supply
Water agency adopts drought plan for Southern California
Riverside Press
By Jennifer Bowles, staff writer
A new drought plan that spells out how a reduction in water supplies would be divvied up among many Southern California cities and agencies likely will not take effect this year, but some Inland agencies are shoring up contingency plans, just in case.
Board members of Metropolitan Water District, which serves 18 million Southern Californians, adopted the drought plan Tuesday in
The plan takes into account areas that have had growth in the last few years, like those in western
"Overall, the whole concept was to share the pain ... to make sure no retail customer and no one agency is impacted significantly more than another," said John Rossi, general manager of Western Municipal Water District. The Riverside-based agency serves 650,000 people from
However, the water content in this year's snowpack that drains into the river is 128 percent of normal, said Roger Patterson, Metropolitan's assistant general manager.
"That's the best snowpack we've had at this time of year for 11 years, so that's encouraging," Patterson said.
If the drought plan goes into effect in the future, agencies would be penalized by up to four times Metropolitan's highest-priced water, about $530 per acre foot, if they exceed their targets.
That concerned some board members representing smaller communities in southern Los Angeles County who said their customers wouldn't be able to shoulder such steep penalties, said Randy Record, a San Jacinto farmer who is a Metropolitan board member representing Perris-based Eastern Municipal Water District. One acre foot equals 326,000 gallons, or enough water for one family for two years.
"I certainly sympathize with that," Record said. "But it's an attempt to have people live within the means of what's appropriate in
Rossi said his agency is developing its own plan to determine how to allocate shortages, if need be, to its own member agencies, including Temecula-based Rancho California Water District and the Elsinore Valley Municipal Water District.
Rossi said even though his agency has some local groundwater to help offset possible shortages from Metropolitan's imported supplies, officials are looking at ways to use untreated groundwater to irrigate parks and crops so the better-quality treated water can be used for drinking purposes.
"We're looking at smart ways to use water differently, so even if the shortage happens, it wouldn't have as much of an effect on drinking supplies," he said.
Record said Eastern Municipal has a contingency plan for water shortages. Depending on the shortage severity, the plan that was updated last summer begins with voluntary measures, then goes to mandatory 10 percent reductions. A third stage would, among other things, limit the days when outdoor irrigation can take place and a fourth stage would ban new lawns.
Eastern Municipal recently postponed decisions to promise that it could serve water to nine large housing and warehouse developments in western
http://www.pe.com/localnews/rivcounty/stories/PE_News_Local_H_drought14.41bf514.html
####
No comments:
Post a Comment