Drought emergency declared in Southern California

Authorities have declared a Regional Drought Emergency for residents in the Southern California area as they prepare for a fourth consecutive drought season. 

In a news release on Wednesday, the Metropolitan Water District’s (MWD) board of directors urged residents to cut back on water use and called for water agencies to immediately reduce their use of all imported water supplies due to the ongoing drought crisis. 

About half of the district’s water is imported from the northern Sierra via the State Water Project and from the Colorado River. According to the news release, some communities rely mostly on imported water while others have little use for it. 

The MWD’s board of directors warned that the call for water-saving measures could become mandatory if drought conditions in the area worsen in the coming months.

​​“Since this drought began, we have been steadily increasing our call for conservation. If we don’t have an extremely wet winter, we will need to elevate to our highest level — a water supply allocation for all of Southern California. Substantial and immediate conservation now and in the coming months will help lessen the potential severity of such an allocation,” MDW General Manager Adel Hagekhalil said in a statement. 

The board also said by next April it will consider allocating supplies to all its 26 member agencies by requiring them to cut their use of imported water or face additional fees on purchased water from the department, according to the news release. 

The latest conservation effort comes as the Southern California area has experienced three straight years of drought conditions, which resulted in record-low SWP deliveries to the area. 

SWP-dependent communities have been under the MWD’s mandatory Emergency Water Conservation Program, where affected agencies have been living with volumetric limits or have restricted outdoor watering to one day a week.

Those mandatory measures are expected to continue through June if substantial rain or snow accumulation doesn’t bring any relief to the ongoing drought problem in the state.

Updated: 7:25 p.m.