Water Reserve Levels

 
 


The Metropolitan Water District imports water from the Colorado River via the Colorado River Aqueduct and from Northern California across the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta via the State Water Project. Metropolitan also has access to reservoirs and groundwater basins that can store more than twice the water that Metropolitan delivers to its 26 member agencies in a typical year.   Favorable weather and environmental conditions allowed Metropolitan to store more than a full year’s supply of deliveries before dry weather in the West and court-ordered water restrictions in the Delta began to deplete reserves. Below is a chronology of recent water supply conditions.

Adequate Reserves Depleting Reserves
 Reserves for Emergencies Only
(670,000 AF)
MAF = Million Acre Feet      AF = Acre Feet AF
The Importance of Storing Reserve Water in Southern California
To meet the annual water needs of residents and businesses in our semi-arid Southern California climate, water reserves are stored in a network of reservoirs and groundwater basins. This storage allows Metropolitan to be able to ensure long-term reliability. The capacity of this storage network is several million acre-feet of water, but reserves may be reduced to critical levels by drought or when delivery of water from the State Water Project and/or the Colorado River is reduced.
Current

Metropolitan has implemented a Water Supply Allocation Plan for an unprecedented second consecutive year. The plan, which initiates mandatory conservation throughout much of Southern California, was first implemented July 1, 2009 and will begin its second year July 1, 2010. With implementation of the plan, Metropolitan anticipates using less water from storage.

 
Previous
 

2006
Favorable rain conditions in Northern California help to allow Metropolitan to replenish its storage reserves with 2.44 million acre-feet of water, bringing the total reserves to 3.11 million acre-feet, the peak in recent history before the district began to draw on the supplies.

  2008
Record dry conditions in Southern California and court-ordered cutbacks in supplies from Northern California create a draw-down on reserves.

 
   

2007
Metropolitan has enough non-emergency reserves in storage to handle a full year’s demand. A 60 percent supply from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta is initially projected.

    2009
Water supply restrictions in the Delta continued. Metropolitan’s storage reserves were down 50 percent.

Water Alert Levels

  • Baseline: - Normal Conditions
    Ongoing implementation of conservation, recycling and education/outreach programs to achieve permanent increases in water use efficiency and build storage reserves.
  • Level 1 - Water Supply Watch:
    Local agency voluntary dry-year conservation measures and use of regional storage reserves.
  • Level 2 - Water Supply Alert:
    Regional call for cities, counties, member agencies and retail water agencies to implement extraordinary conservation through drought ordinances and other measures to mitigate use of storage reserves.
  • Level 3 - Water Supply Allocation:
    Implement Metropolitan Supply Allocation Plan.