California Water Supplies

California is in a statewide water-supply emergency – and it’s becoming more serious by the day. Several years of below-average precipitation have left many of the state’s primary reservoirs at record-low capacities. Legal decisions to protect fish species in the Delta are greatly limiting the transport of much-needed water from Northern California to the southern portion of our state, and other legal agreements are limiting the amount of water we receive from the Colorado River. Because of these conditions, Governor Schwarzenegger has proclaimed California to be in a Drought Emergency, marking the first time such an emergency has been declared for the entire state.

What This Means for MNWD
Due to our location in south Orange County, MNWD does not have access to a local groundwater basin and we don’t receive enough rain in a year to serve our semi-arid service area. So MNWD’s water supply comes primarily from the Colorado River and the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, which are fed by melting snow in the Rocky and Sierra Nevada mountains. Both sources received slightly less than average amounts of precipitation in 2009, but that comes on the heels of 10 years of below average rainfall in the Upper Colorado River Basin and three years of drought in the Sierras.

Reservoirs such as Lake Mead and Lake Powell, which serve as our region’s “water bank accounts” were severely drawn down by years of
below-average precipitation, and are now at near-record lows, placing Southern California at risk of water shortages more severe than what we are experiencing now.

Water deliveries from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta are also in short supply because restrictions on pumping ordered by a federal court to protect endangered fish species have reduced pumping by 30 percent. California’s allocation of Colorado River water has been reduced due to agreements with other states that are dependent on the river, and with Mexico, which relies on the river to irrigate one of its most productive agricultural regions. All of this means that MNWD cannot count on receiving as much water as we have in the past. Customers must adjust their water-use behaviors, using less water to ensure there is enough to meet everyone’s current and future needs.