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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.
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Adequate Reserves |
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Depleting Reserves
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Reserves for Emergencies Only
(670,000 AF) |
| MAF = Million Acre Feet AF = Acre Feet AF |
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Storing Reserves
Metropolitan stores water reserves in a network of reservoirs and groundwater basins. The capacity of this storage network can vary over time. As of April 2009, the total potential storage capacity was approximately 5.3 million acre-feet (enough storage to hold more than 1.6 trillion gallons of water). |
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Metropolitan has implemented a Water Supply Allocation Plan which will initiate mandatory conservation throughout Southern California, effective July 1, 2009. Without the Plan, Metropolitan's reserve levels could have been reduced by as much as 60%, or 650,000 acre-feet. With implementation of the Plan, we anticipate using less water from our storage reserves. |
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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.
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2008
Record dry conditions in Southern California and court-ordered cutbacks in supplies from Northern California create a draw-down on reserves. |
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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.
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February 2009
As of February 2009 Metropolitan's water supply reserves were at approximately 1,770,000 AF. Further water supply restrictions in the Delta are projected. |
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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.
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