Water officials eye meager snow in Sierras

By: GIG CONAUGHTON - Staff Writer | Sunday, April 1, 2007 8:44 PM PDT ∞

SAN DIEGO ---- Thanks to swelling reservoirs, Southern Californians won't notice at all this summer that the Sierra mountain snowpack that helps make sure local faucets continue to flow was at its lowest level in two decades this winter, state and regional officials said last week.

However, some said, if the Sierra snowfalls are meager again next year, Southern Californians could face water shortages in 2008. San Diego County water suppliers draw some of their water from the melting snowpack in the Sierras.

One San Diego County water leader said several factors raise questions about Southern California's increasing dependence upon Northern California water.

Among them are potential droughts, a court ruling that threatens to shut down Northern California's massive State Water Project, the water project's lack of reservoirs, and the ever-fragile state of the water project's Bay-Delta.-

"The State Water Project will always be a primary consideration in the water supply for Southern California," said Ken Weinberg, water resources manager for the San Diego County Water Authority. "But overreliance on it is dangerous."

The water project and the Colorado River have been semi-arid, rain-poor Southern California's main sources of imported water for decades.

Reservoirs full

Don Strickland, spokesman for California's Department of Water Resources, the agency that operates the State Water Project, said last week that this year's meager snow fall isn't causing concern about water shortages.

He said that was because rain and snowfall in Northern California has been plentiful the two previous years and the water project's reservoirs are full. Strickland said the water project's largest reservoir, the nearly 16,000-acre Lake Oroville, was currently filled with 3.1 million acre-feet of water, enough to sustain more than 6 million households for a year.

But Strickland and other water officials said the State Water Project is historically fickle, flush with water one year and nearly empty the next. The fluctuations are due primarily to demands on the system that can tap out the reservoirs in a single year.

Last year, the water project was able to supply 100 percent of the water requested by water agencies, including Southern California's main water supplier, the Metropolitan Water District.

This year, the water project has nearly half of last year's supply.

Another year of drought would draw down the reservoirs to uncertain levels, Strickland said.

"I think we're going to be OK on water this year," Strickland said. "The big concern is what happens next year? Then the picture changes. If we don't get a good snowpack then the following summer could be a little dicey."

Region increasing reliance on water project

Meanwhile, Southern California has increased its dependence upon the State Water Project.

Before 2003, Metropolitan got most of its imported water supply from the Colorado River. But in 2003, California signed an agreement with six other western states to cut its overuse of the river's water. Metropolitan immediately cut its take by 30 percent.

Metropolitan delivers drinking water to nearly 18 million Southern Californians in six counties, including delivering 75 percent to 80 percent of the San Diego County Water Authority's supply.

Last week, Metropolitan General Manager Jeff Kightlinger said Metropolitan got two-thirds of its imported water from the State Water Project.

Even before the news of the shrinking Sierra snowpack broke last week, a Superior Court judge in Sacramento issued a ruling that could force the state to shut down the State Water Project because the state hasn't gotten environmental permits to inadvertently kill endangered salmon and smelt that get sucked up by massive pumping stations.

Kightlinger and other water officials said they hope that ruling will be overturned or reconsidered by the current court. Kightlinger said Metropolitan's own system of reservoirs would be able to sustain Southern California's water demands for 12 to 18 months if the water project was shut down. But he suggested that a long-term shutdown could lead to mandatory water cuts for Southern California.

Finding new sources

Weinberg of the Water Authority and Kightlinger, said the best way that Southern California can protect itself from the fickle supply of the water project is to "diversify" water supplies, or try to find new places to get it.

In Metropolitan's case, Kightlinger said, it has arranged deals to buy water from rice farmers in Sacramento, increased its number of projects to store water underground in banks of porous rock, and to build new reservoirs such as Temecula's Diamond Valley Lake to increase storage.

Weinberg said the Water Authority, which supplies nearly all of San Diego County's water through 23 cities and member agencies, has talked about seawater desalination. It also signed a deal in 2003 to buy billions of gallons of Colorado River water a year from Imperial Valley farmers for 45 to 75 years and is creating an emergency storage project by linking reservoirs and raising Lakeside's San Vicente Dam. However, the water transfer, the largest of those projects, is scheduled to pick up slowly over the first 19 years of the agreement.

"Our vulnerability is really in the next 10 years," Weinberg said. "Before the transfer fully ramps up."

Conserving will be key

Both Weinberg and Kightlinger said that their respective agencies were already urging residents and businesses to find new ways to conserve water by cutting outdoor watering.

Water officials said they pushed the public hard after California's last major drought, from 1987 to 1992, to cut indoor water use by using low-flow shower heads, toilets that flush with less water, and high-efficiency clothes washers.

Most water officials say that the opportunity to lower indoor water use is nearly exhausted, and, officials add, 50 percent, and sometimes more, of all residential water use is outdoor water use. Water poured onto thirsty lawns, gardens and landscapes.

Contact staff writer Gig Conaughton at (760) 739-6696 or gconaughton@nctimes.com. Comment at nctimes.com.

First name only. Comments including last names, contact addresses, e-mail addresses or phone numbers will be deleted. Attempts to misrepresent your identity or impersonate any person will not be approved. All comments are screened before they appear online, so please keep them brief. Comments reflect the views of those commenting and not necessarily those of the North County Times or its staff writers. Click here to view additional comment policies.