Our Story

Uniquely Metropolitan

The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California might not be a household name. But if you’re a Southern Californian, there’s a good chance you get some of your water through Metropolitan. We serve 26 public water agencies — cities, municipal water districts and one county water authority — that then deliver supplies directly or indirectly to 19 million people in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego and Ventura counties.

We have imported water from the Colorado River since 1941 and from Northern California since the early 1970s. We are the largest single contractor of the State Water Project and a major supporter of Southern California water conservation and water recycling programs, along with other local water management activities. 

Whether it’s historic drought or the longer-term threat of climate change, we’re here to protect the region and provide high-quality affordable water in an environmentally responsible way. Learn more about Metropolitan's recent accomplishments in our latest brochure, Leadership Today Water Tomorrow.

Metropolitan’s
Annual Report

 

The Annual Report provides a detailed recap of activities for the fiscal year. With 100 pages of text, more than 50 tables and charts and dozens of photos and graphics, it captures the year’s highlights and information covering Metropolitan’s water supplies, governance, operations, programs, projects and policies. The website includes online versions of the First Annual Report and all reports from fiscal year 2007 onward.

Annual Reports

Archived Reports

Colorado River Water Election Billboard, 1931

Adapting to
Growing Demand

By 1920, Los Angeles had grown to a million residents. Water shortages were on the horizon. Leaders were concerned the desert would reclaim the land as cities battled each other over water rights and worried that Los Angeles would annex them for their water. Southern Californians united around an ambitious dream to bring Colorado River water across the Mojave Desert. Their vehicle — the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, created by state law in 1928.

 

Our founding mission: to build and operate the Colorado River Aqueduct.  The first Board of Directors met in Pasadena at the historic Huntington hotel in 1928. W.P. Whitsett, the founder of the community of Van Nuys, was elected chairman.

Metropolitan helped forge landmark federal agreements like the Boulder Canyon Project Act, which divided up the Colorado River water supply and led to the creation of Hoover Dam. Voters overwhelmingly approved a $220 million Depression-era bond that provided jobs to 35,000 — tunnel borers, miners, engineers, cooks and more. That would be the equivalent of a $3.75 billion investment today. Workers toiled in 120-degree heat on the 242-mile Colorado River Aqueduct, building 150 miles of canals, siphons, conduit and pipelines. We erected five pumping plants to lift water over mountains so deliveries could then flow west by gravity. We blasted 90-plus miles of tunnels, including a waterway under Mt. Jacinto, where crews battled columns of water 600 feet high.

“This has been just about the roughest, toughest tunnel job in construction history. These tunnel men have accomplished what many persons said could never be done.” 

—W.P. Whitsett, Metropolitan board chair, 1938 

Workers on scaffolding in the West Coachella Tunnel, 1934

History Alive

On June 17, 1941, a valve was turned from the new F.E. Weymouth Water Softening Plant and for the first time water flowed to the city of Pasadena, one of the original 13 cities whose voters approved the 1933 aqueduct construction bond. By the end of July, water would flow to Beverly Hills, Burbank, Compton and Santa Monica. Orange County would soon follow.

 

As the final countdown began to delivery day, it was a time of promise and uncertainty. Slugger Joe DiMaggio was in the middle of his 56-game hitting streak and heavyweight champion Joe Louis was racking up a string of knockouts. Glenn Miller and Duke Ellington were cutting records like “Chattanooga Choo-Choo” and “Take the A-Train.”

The first commercial TV broadcasts were weeks away. Across the Atlantic Ocean, World War II raged from Belgium to Britain as Nazi Germany tightened its grip on much of Europe. For weeks, America had been in a state of emergency because of Axis threats, and six months later, the Pearl Harbor attack would plunge the nation into war.

 

The new aqueduct provided crucial support to the war effort, and years after the war ended, each generation of Southern Californians has risen to the challenge of preserving water reliability to a region and its industries that took their place on the world’s stage.

Learn about Metropolitan’s early days through the film and voices of the people who built and witnessed what is considered one of the nation’s greatest civil engineering feats.

Thirteen Golden Cities

In late 1938, Metropolitan released this motion picture to major Southland movie theaters and schools that detailed the story of the Colorado River Aqueduct project with a background of California's romantic and colorful history.  The film was created to give a vivid account of the men and women involved in this historic project.

Frame from Metropolitan's "Thirteen Golden Cities" motion picture released in 1938
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The Colorado River Aqueduct

This silent film (recently set to music) was created by Metropolitan in 1938 to record the history and details of the building the Colorado River Aqueduct and its delivery of water to 13 original cities.

The Colorado River Aqueduct Video Cover
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The Dream Comes True

A video history of Metropolitan, including early clips that show the 1928 building of the Colorado River aqueduct and how the district has evolved to keep step with public values such as water quality and stewardship.

A frame of a waterfall from our historical video
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Hospital Employees in front of a Colorado River Aqueduct Hospital building, 1941

Spearheading Innovation

Innovation has been a hallmark of Metropolitan’s planning and operations since our early days. We provided medical care to workers through a nickle-a-day payroll deduction plan, working with the doctor who would later use this as the model for Kaiser Permanente. We built a pioneering water treatment plant in La Verne that was the largest of its kind. On June 17, 1941, we began delivering water to Pasadena as supplies coursed into a two-county area, linked by a vast network of tunnels and feeder lines snaking beneath the streets of 13 cities. Our water helped build Navy ships during World War II and supported the post-war boom. Faced with pleas to share our Colorado River bounty, we devised an annexation system that allowed Metropolitan to grow to cover six counties.

California Governor Pat Brown reviewing Metropolitan's expansion plan, 1960

As Southern California’s population swelled, water demands grew with it. So, when Gov. Pat Brown sought to realize the decades-old dream of building a water system that would serve two-thirds of the state, he knew Metropolitan was crucial to its success. A former San Francisco mayor with Sacramento Valley farming roots, Brown held a series of increasingly heated talks with Metropolitan board chair Joseph Jensen over financial issues. Then came an 11th-hour reversal by the Los Angeles delegation and the Metropolitan board to support the project — a week before a November 1960 statewide election in which the bond measure narrowly passed.

Metropolitan signed a contract providing rights to more than 1.9 million acre-feet of water, when available. (In 2018, the contract was extended to 2085.) Water from the west branch of the California Aqueduct began flowing into Lake Castaic in January 1972, and in March 1973, work wrapped up on the East Branch, bringing water into Lake Perris. This also initiated an annual ritual where the state announces what percentage of the contracted amount of water will be delivered to Metropolitan and other State Water Project contractors. The annual allocation depends on the amount of Sierra snowpack and precipitation to ultimately deliver through the system, and, more recently, also on the health of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta ecosystem.

A Metropolitan worker welds a pipe as a part of the SWP pump plant construction

We began incentivizing our members to store our water in their local groundwater basins for drier times. An extended drought prompted our 1990s shift into conservation, recycling and groundwater cleanup and construction of Diamond Valley Lake. We also began putting forth new ideas, like purchasing conserved water from farmers. When 21st Century demands and drought pressured the Colorado River, our creative alliances with farmers and southwest states plugged the gap. When contamination and stricter standards threatened supplies, we served as a key backup, investing millions in treatment upgrades and protecting water in faraway rivers. We buffered the region from historic 2010s drought as we expanded storage, invested hundreds of millions in conservation and sought a long-term balanced solution to the water supply and environmental issues in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, paving the way for even more breakthroughs in the 2020s.

The heroic efforts that sent water across the desert and flowing into Southern California 75 years ago have inspired Metropolitan and its 26 member public agencies to make sure the promise of water reliability is one that will always be kept.

1928

The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California is formed to build the Colorado River Aqueduct.

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Members of the Metropolitan Water District posing for a photo at the beginning of the Colorado River Aqueduct projet, 1928

1931

Voters approve $220 million bond for construction of the CRA.

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Headquarters for the 87th District Citizens Colorado River Water Committee

1933

Construction of CRA begins.

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Geographical Plan for the Colorado River Aqueduct

1941

Metropolitan celebrates first deliveries of CRA water to Southern California.

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Metropolitan Members at the celebration for the opening of the Colorado River Aqueduct.

1959

California Legislature approves Burns-Porter Act authorizing Feather River Project, leading to construction of State Water Project.

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Rushing water in the Feather River

1960

Metropolitan endorses the construction of the State Water Project and soon after signs up to become largest contractor.

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Construction machenery starting excavations for the State Water Project

1964

U.S. Supreme Court hands down Arizona vs. California decision.

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1972

First deliveries of SWP supplies reach Southern California.

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Photo of the State Water Project aqueduct.

1976

California registers one of the worst single-year droughts in its history.

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1981

Metropolitan begins offering financial incentives for local investment in water recycling projects.

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Stacked cylinders with a spiggot protruding out of one used in water recycling

1982

Proposition 9, authorizing the construction of the Peripheral Canal, is narrowly rejected by California voters.

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Geographical plan for the construction of the Peripheral canal

1989

Metropolitan and the Imperial Irrigation District enter into 35-year conservation agreement.

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1991

Entering fifth year of drought, Metropolitan cuts imported water deliveries to member agencies by 31 percent.

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1992

"March miracle” rainfall helps ease the drought of 1987-1992.

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1995

Metropolitan breaks ground on the construction of the Southland’s largest reservoir, later named Diamond Valley Lake.

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Aerial view of the excavation project for the construction of Diamond Valley Lake

1996

Metropolitan’s board adopts first Integrated Water Resources Plan.

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2000

Diamond Valley Lake dedicated.

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Aerial view of Diamond Valley Lake following project completion

2000

Colorado River enters historic period of drought.

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2003

The Quantification Settlement Agreement for the Colorado River completed.

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2003

Diamond Valley Lake opens to public recreation.

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Trucks hauling boats stuck in traffic on their way to Diamond Valley Lake

2005

Metropolitan enters into 35-year land fallowing agreement with Palo Verde Irrigation District.

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A freshly tilled field in the Palo Verde Irrigation District

2007

Colorado River Interim Surplus Guidelines enacted.

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2008

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service imposes significant restrictions on SWP pumping from the Delta to protect Delta smelt.

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A close-up view of a group of smelt fish in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta

2009

Responding to drought, Metropolitan reduces supplies delivered to its member public agencies for the first time since 1991.

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2009

California Legislature passes historic reforms for the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and statewide water management.

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A heard of farm animals grazing next to the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta

2014

Gov. Jerry Brown declares statewide drought emergency; SWP allocation set at 5 percent, lowest in history.

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California State Capitol Building on a sunny day

2015

First-ever statewide mandatory water restrictions declared; Metropolitan board votes to restrict wholesale deliveries to its 26 member agencies.

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Metropolitan's Board Room in preparation for a board meeting

2015

Metropolitan launches turf removal rebate, under the nation’s largest water conservation program.

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2016

Metropolitan celebrates 75th anniversary of CRA deliveries to Southern California.

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Metropolitan's 75th anniversary celebration seal

2016

Metropolitan rolls back mandatory water restrictions.

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A sprinkler watering grass

2017

Metropolitan board votes to support California WaterFix, a federal project to modernize the state water system and help improve supply reliability.

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2019

Gov. Gavin Newsom announces shift to a single-tunnel Delta Conveyance Project; Metropolitan supports the effort.

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2019

Colorado River Drought Contingency Plan is passed by all seven states and Congress.

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Representatives sitting at a table to discuss the Colorado River Drought Contingency Plan

2019

Metropolitan and Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts begin operations at a 500,000-gallon-per-day, advanced purification demonstration facility in major step toward the potential construction of one of the largest water recycling plants in the nation.

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2019

Metropolitan and Bard Water District agree to landmark, seven-year seasonal land fallowing agreement.

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Irrigation plumbing plan on a grading map

2020

Metropolitan continues to provide water supply reliability during the global COVID-19 pandemic.

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The mission of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California is to provide its service area with adequate and reliable supplies of high-quality water to meet present and future needs in an environmentally and economically responsible way.

About the Seal

The Metropolitan Water District seal was officially adopted in 1933 after several other designs were considered in the years immediately following the district's creation in 1928.

Elements include the California bear, the California poppy, water flowing from a large tunnel, Colorado River Aqueduct construction workers flanked by desert plants, a gear signifying the wheels of industry, and links of a chain representing Metropolitan's founding cities.

The seal is frequently used on Metropolitan publications, materials and correspondence and is considered the district's official logo. Small changes were made to the seal over the years, mainly to add more color or enhance a highlight.

When visitors step into the Rotunda on the lobby floor of Metropolitan's Union Station headquarters, the seal is one of the first things they see. The seal has been revised over the years to reflect the growth and changes of the District, and the lobby seal reflects some of these changes. A second river was added on the right side of the seal to symbolize the addition of the State Water Project to the district's supply sources.

Read about how each MWD facility received their names.

Uniquely Metropolitan: A Regional Success Story

The first flowing water from the Colorado River Aqueduct.
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Schematic Colorado River Aqueduct 1934

The images below are from our photo archives of the men and women, spanning from 1927 to 1941, who were all part of the engineering and construction project, the Colorado River Aqueduct.

Dr. Sidney Garfield and Nurse Betty Runyen at Contractors General Hospital, Desert Center, 1934; photo courtesy Kaiser Permanente.
Hospital
The Julia B on the Colorado River, near Parker, AZ with LA city surveyors, 1931.
LA city surveyors
First water through Colorado River tunnel into Gene Reservoir, 1940.
First water through Colorado River tunnel
Thousand Palms Siphon, 1935.
Thousand Palms Siphon
Eagle Mountain Pumping Plant construction, 1936.
Eagle Mountain Pumping Plant construction
Metropolitan's Ellis Davey and LADWP's B.W. Weaver turn valve to allow Colorado River water into LA city water system at Ascot Reservoir, June 17, 1941; photo courtesy LADWP.
Metropolitan's Ellis Davey and LADWP'
Utah Construction Company’s school at West Iron Mountain with Miss Alice McChesney, 1934.
Utah Construction Company’s school
Photographic party, including Mr. and Mrs. Fred A. Parrish, on banks of Colorado River, 1931.
Photographic party, including Mr
A heavy freeze at an early CRA camp, c. 1934.
A heavy freeze
Ben Arp’s West Iron Mountain Tunnel hole through cake, 1935.
Ben Arp’s West Iron Mountain
LA city survey team exploring possible CRA routes, 1927.
LA city survey team exploring possible CRA routes
Early Colorado River Aqueduct construction, c. 1935.
Early Colorado River Aqueduct construction
X -ray machine to test welds on steel pipes, 1937.
Citizens for Colorado River Water Committee office
Citizens for Colorado River Water Committee office, Pasadena, 1931.
Early Water Committee
Motor room at Intake Pumping Plant, July 1938.
Motor room at Intake Pumping Plant
Early Greyhound bus travelling between CRA camps, c. 1935.
Early Greyhound bus travelling
First Metropolitan board meeting in Pasadena, Dec. 1928.
First Metropolitan board meeting in Pasadena
Pushwalla Camp mess hall kitchen staff, July 1933.
Pushwalla Camp mess hall kitchen staff
Berdoo tunnel workers firing last shot, 1936.
Berdoo tunnel workers firing last shot
Sam Vaughn (right) and P.F. Smokey Melendrez (left) 2nd Prize at Indio ($300.00) "Berdoo" drilling contest. Aqueduct Miners' Day, at Indio, CA, March 17, 1934.
Drilling Contest. Indio, CA. March 17, 1934.
Locomotive and muck car in Little Morongo Tunnel, 1934.
Locomotive and muck car in Little Morongo Tunnel
Celebration for start of Colorado River Aqueduct work, Cabazon, 1933.
Celebration for start of Colorado River Aqueduct work
Big band dance near Banning field headquarters, Nov. 1934.
Big band dance near Banning field headquarters, Nov. 1934.