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News of the Arroyo
Title: | Beyond weather: Southland's water challenges |
Subtitle: | Guest View |
Date: | 2010-07-02 |
Author: | Tim Brick |
Publication: | Pasadena Star-News |
Content: | AN above-average rain year throughout California has prompted some very understandable questions (Our View, June 26) about whether the dry cycle is over and whether much of our water problem has thus washed away. The healthier rain totals this season do mean that the short-term water management picture is not getting worse. But it will take more than snow in the Sierra to ensure a sustainable water future for Southern California. It will take decisive action and more regional self-sufficiency here at home. Water supply management is similar to a three-legged stool for the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California and its six-county service area. There is the supply that Metropolitan imports from the Colorado River (about 20 percent of our overall dependence). There is the supply from Northern California that moves across the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta (30 percent). And there are various local supplies, mostly groundwater, that meet the rest of our need. The good news short-term is that the Southland and Northern California had close-to-average rain seasons. Yet on the troubling side, the Colorado River had another dry winter, moving this seven-state water system closer to a potential shortage situation in as soon as two years. Likewise, the Delta remains in ecological distress for many reasons. Pumping restrictions this winter and spring to protect endangered fish prevented Delta water projects from capturing a supply that would have been sufficient to run the entire city of Los Angeles for more than a year. Metropolitan hopes to take modest steps to replenish water reserves that have been dramatically reduced in recent years, but not nearly the improvement that could have happened without the problems in the Delta. In sum, the situation is more complicated than whether a hydrologic drought exists in any given watershed that this region depends upon. It is a challenge unlike any in Metropolitan's 82-year history and will merit a historic response that is well under way. In Northern California, bold action is necessary via the Bay Delta Conservation Plan to identify and implement a strategy to improve the ecosystem and the estuary's water systems. Here at home, conservation has never been more important. Metropolitan is busy looking long-term through the updating its Integrated Resources Plan to further emphasize conservation and local/regional water supply measures to maintain reliability over the next 30 years. Looking beyond that horizon over the next half-century, Metropolitan has assembled a Blue Ribbon Committee to stimulate new ideas and innovation in the face of climate change, population grown and other water supply challenges. Droughts have always been a cyclical part of California life, whenever they happen to begin or end. It is all the other emerging environmental, population and climate challenges that make this so different and so permanent. Living in this new water reality doesn't mean that we won't have enough water to sustain our lives and economy. It means there is never any to waste or to take for granted. Tim Brick of Pasadena is chairman of the Metropolitan Water District. |