In order to understand droughts — this won’t be our last — understand California’s larger operating environment, our increasingly volatile weather. First, the drought is grim and getting grimmer. Consider that the Metropolitan Water District, water supplier for nearly 18 million Southern Californians, last week notified those customers to prepare for emergency cutbacks. The final decision won’t be made until April, but we can pretty much figure out what’s in store. The Met warned of a mandatory 5-10% reduction in use. “It won’t be a matter of if, but how much, mandatory water cutbacks will be necessary to meet demands and maintain reasonable reserves,” CEO Jeffrey Kightlinger said.
Second, about the weather and the new normal for winter. Rainstorms typically come in two varieties, the cold variety swooping down from the Gulf of Alaska and the warm variety pile-driving up from the tropical region of the Pacific Ocean. The former bring us the snow pack and spring run-off on which we’ve come to depend as relatively manageable source of consumptive water. The latter bring us torrential monsoons that we probably should learn how to manage better with reservoir, surface and groundwater storage.
California has the $7.5-billion Prop. 1 water bond to build a solid foundation for this long-term extreme weather management. The governor and his agency secretaries are pushing hard for accelerated funding. The Legislature held two hearings last week on oversight and 2015-16 water spending. Those of us in the Capitol community are working to support this unified effort “to get the money out the door,” as a senior executive from the Assn. of California Water Agencies testified.
This comes as the State Water Resources Control Board will take action in March on California’s first-ever Dry Year Operations Plan. It will be a grim business, and it helps to understand the hydrologic context. Speaking of hydrologic context, we also need to prepare for the next floods, which won’t be our last….
Announcement from the Met, fyi:
http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2015/feb/09/environment-water-cutbacks-metropolitan/