Southern California's primary drinking-water supplier, reacting to the governor's declaration this week that California is locked in a drought, said Friday it will declare a "water supply alert" and urge the region's cities to crack down on water-wasters.

Officials with Metropolitan Water District, which supplies river water imported from the Rockies and Sierra Nevada to 19 million people in six counties, including San Diego and Riverside, also said in a conference call with reporters that residential customers could face rationing in 2009.

If such a restriction is invoked, it would be the first time since rationing was ordered in 1991 following six years of drought.

Metropolitan's board of directors is scheduled to take up the "water supply alert" resolution on Tuesday. The resolution calls on the region's cities and water retailers to dust off drought ordinances that lay out how rationing should occur if required, to establish tiered rates that promote conservation, to fine people who let water run down the street and to set up hotlines for residents to report waste.

Metropolitan distributes water to 26 agencies, among them the San Diego County Water Authority and the Western and Eastern municipal water districts of Riverside County, which in turn provide water to area cities and, in some cases, sell directly to homes and businesses.

John Liarakos, a spokesman for the San Diego County Water Authority, said most of the San Diego-area cities are in the process of updating drought ordinances written the last time rationing was threatened in 1991 or drafting new ones, and setting the stage for fining people who waste water.

For example, the Vallecitos Water District, which provides water to more than 20,000 homes and businesses in San Marcos, Vista and Escondido, has an ordinance that would fine people $100 the first time, $200 for a second violation and $500 for every other time they let water run down the street, said Dale Mason, assistant general manager.

Mason said the penalty probably won't be put into effect unless the regional water authority calls for rationing.

In Riverside County, one agency is already gearing up to fine people.

Eastern Municipal Water District, which serves the Interstate 215 corridor between Murrieta and Moreno Valley, just passed an ordinance that put residents on notice they could be in trouble if they let sprinklers water the street or let the hose run down the driveway while they are lathering soap on their cars.

"After Sept. 1, if we see that you are wasting water, we can, after two warnings, fine you $100," said Peter Odencrans, an Eastern spokesman.

And in some places, rationing is possible this year.

Tedi Jackson, a spokeswoman for Western Municipal Water District, which provides water to parts of Lake Elsinore, Murrieta and Temecula, said watering restrictions could come into play as early as August or September, depending on conditions at that point.

But for most residential customers in San Diego and Riverside counties, rationing isn't likely to come down the pipeline in the next few months.

"The immediate impact to us right here is probably not going to be felt by your average consumer," Liarakos said. "But the specter of a mandatory water restriction … is right out in front of us and it could hit us as early as the beginning of 2009."

The problem is, in the wake of years of drought in the Sierra Nevada and Rockies and court-ordered reductions in water deliveries aimed at protecting an endangered fish, Metropolitan will be able to deliver only about three-quarters of the water that it normally delivers.

Typically, said General Manager Jeffrey Kightlinger, Metropolitan sells 2.2 million acre-feet of water a year, but in 2008, deliveries are expected to total 1.7 million acre-feet -- about the same as last year.

An acre-foot is about 326,000 gallons, and by definition the amount it would take to cover an acre of land to a depth of one foot. It is roughly enough to supply two Southern California families for a year.

Because of the cutback, Metropolitan has had to draw down its emergency supplies in area reservoirs, such as Diamond Valley Lake near Temecula.

"We consider those to be pretty sacred," Kightlinger said, saying the district must leave something to fall back on in the event that an earthquake paralyzes the region.

It could take six months, he said, to repair aqueducts that deliver water from the Colorado River or Northern California, and the region must have a way to continue supplying water in the meantime.

Such emergency storage exceeded 3 million acre-feet a couple years ago. But it is down to 2.2 million -- and it continues to decline, Kightlinger said.

And he said Metropolitan can't expect to replenish that storage in a wet year because a federal judge last August ordered a 30 percent reduction in deliveries from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to protect a tiny fish, the delta smelt, that has a propensity to be sucked into water pumps.

Federal biologists are in the process of examining just how severe the predicament is for the fish. And Metropolitan officials expect that the 30 percent cutback will remain in place for at least a couple more years, if not much longer.

Consequently, they said, the region may simply have to learn to live with less, permanently.

"Conservation isn't needed just in dry years," said Metropolitan Vice Chairman Anthony Fellow of the San Gabriel Valley, in the conference call. "We're coming to the point in Southern California life where there's no room for water waste, whether today, tomorrow or in the coming years. Conservation is going to have to become the new norm. … We're running out of water, period."

Metropolitan and its affiliates already had been stressing the need for conservation in a media blitz that kicked off in April. Area residents are being urged to reduce watering 10 percent.

The San Diego County Water Authority has sponsored a companion campaign that spells out the regional goal, urging each person to save 20 gallons each day.

"At this point, we don't see ourselves shifting significantly from our voluntary conservation message," Liarakos said.

What has changed, however, is the messenger.

With Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger putting his Hollywood, movie-star face behind the issue, the profile of the drought and its serious threat to California's economy has been raised dramatically, said Mason, of the Vallecitos Water District.

"The message isn't changing, but it is probably going to get a little louder," Mason said.

Until the governor's announcement, the severity of the situation may not have been clear to some residents who remember a lot of rain falling last winter.

"Yes, we did have some rain," said Kristen Crane, water conservation manager for Poway, which has been out front calling for a 10 percent reduction since the first of the year. "But all things considered, we are in a critically dry year."

Contact staff writer Dave Downey at (760) 745-6611, Ext. 2623, or ddowney@nctimes.com.