![]() Los Angeles DWP spokesperson Ellen Cheng did not respond to multiple inquiries about which parts of the city will be affected. Some communities served by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, Inland Empire Utilities Agency and the Upper San Gabriel Valley Municipal Water District have other sources that may buffer the blow of the new mandate. Two of the six depend almost entirely on state aqueduct supplies - the Las Virgenes Municipal Water District, which serves 75,000 residents west of Los Angeles, and the Calleguas Municipal Water District, which supplies 19 agencies and cities in southeast Ventura County. Water agencies are still figuring out the details. Some local water providers urged the board at today’s meeting to let them continue watering sports fields and parks more frequently so the turf doesn’t dry out. ![]() How much each agency must curtail customers’ water use under Metropolitan’s order depends on how much each relies on the state aqueduct compared to other sources, such as groundwater or recycled sewage. The Colorado River, however, also is facing extreme drought, and deliveries to California, Nevada and Arizona are being cut back under an agreement signed by the states in December. Metropolitan has been working to increase the number of customers who can receive Colorado River water to reduce reliance on the hard-pressed state aqueduct. They receive imports from the Colorado River, which largely are sent to Orange, San Diego and Imperial counties. The six affected water suppliers are Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, Las Virgenes Municipal Water District, Upper San Gabriel Valley Municipal Water District and Three Valleys Municipal Water District - all in Los Angeles County - and the Calleguas Municipal Water District in Ventura County and the Inland Empire Utilities Agency in San Bernardino County.Ībout 13 million other Southern Californians are unaffected by the order because they aren’t as dependent on water imported via the State Water Project. More stringent restrictions may come later, Metropolitan officials warned: The water providers must also prepare to ban all outdoor watering as early as September, if necessary, as California suffers one of its driest periods on record. Today’s mandate is the first outdoor watering restriction imposed by the giant water-import agency, which supplies 19 million people in California. The damage to our environment will take decades to repair,” Kraut added. “This plan will result not just in brown grass but in killing countless trees. “I’m appalled that a change this drastic is happening in such a short period of time.” “This is insane but not unexpected,” Peter Kraut, a councilmember from the San Fernando Valley city of Calabasas told the Metropolitan board, which is composed of 38 city and local district officials. Experts say conservation wavers in the region because restrictions are largely voluntary - and their water never seems to run out. Southern Californians have heard for decades about the dangers of drought, but per-person residential water use has increased in the past two years, despite the severe drought. And there is not enough supply available to meet the normal demands in these areas.”Ĭutting back outdoor watering to one day a week would be a big change for the arid, densely populated areas, where many people irrigate their lawns and gardens. “Today these areas rely on extremely limited supplies from Northern California. ![]() “At this time, a third of our region, 6 million Southern Californians in parts of Los Angeles, Ventura, San Bernardino counties, face a very real and immediate water stress challenge,” said Metropolitan Water District General Manager Adel Hagekhalil. The restrictions target parts of Los Angeles, Ventura and San Bernardino counties that rely heavily on water from drought-stricken Northern California rivers transported south via the State Water Project.
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