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Long Beach Water Applauds the MWD's Regional Call for Immediate Cut in Outdoor Water Use

Posted on: Thursday, 17 April 2008, 18:00 CDT

The Long Beach Water Department is applauding today's announcement by the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California of a public relations campaign to curtail outdoor water use in southern California. The MWD has announced a 13-week advertising effort to urge southern California residents to cut outdoor watering at least one day each week to help restore badly depleted emergency water storage reserves. The advertising campaign is reportedly the "largest, multi-pronged, public information and outreach campaign in MWD's history." Nancy Sutley, chair of the MWD Water Planning and Stewardship Committee said, "The MWD is on track this year to draw on as much as one-quarter of southern California's emergency reserves. At this rate, we could deplete our stored reserves in a few years."

"I am very happy to hear the news from the MWD today," states Kevin L. Wattier, General Manager of the Long Beach Water Department. "I'm hopeful that every water consumer in southern California will heed this message." Early this month, Long Beach Water reported that northern California water supply reservoirs have been rapidly depleted this year to meet California's demand for water, due to the effects of record drought. In fact, the volume of water stored in these critical supply reservoirs is, collectively, 2.6 million-acre-feet (30 percent) less today then at this time last year. Today, lake Oroville only holds 55 percent as much water as it did this time, just one year ago. Despite this year's average snow pack in the Sierra Mountains, the California Department of Water Resources has recently announced that water deliveries to the Bay Area, the Central Valley and to southern California "will be far below normal this year," due to a recent Federal court ruling which has significantly restricted pumping in the Sacramento/San Joaquin Delta.

"What this means is that we've essentially moved into a world where even in NORMAL years, we don't have enough water," according to Wattier. "Without a more aggressive effort to implement extraordinary conservation, among other important longer term solutions, southern California is currently positioning itself for catastrophic failure in the event of a protracted drought."

Late last month, the Long Beach Board of Water Commissioners renewed their call for immediate, extraordinary conservation. "We need to engineer a permanent lifestyle change in the way we all see and use our water, so that inefficient and wasteful uses are no longer tolerated by anyone," stated Bill Townsend, the Commission's President. "The only way a successful effort is going to be sustained, is if we have all of Southern California on board."

Beginning in June 2007, the Long Beach Board of Water Commissioners implemented extraordinary conservation measures, including enforcement of new citywide restrictions on certain outdoor uses of water. These efforts have achieved an additional 6 percent reduction in water use citywide through March of this year.

The MWD is a public agency that wholesales imported water to retail water agencies, like the Long Beach Water Department, throughout southern California. Nearly half of the water used in Long Beach is purchased from the MWD.

The Long Beach Water Department is an urban, southern California retail water supply agency and the standard in water conservation and environmental stewardship.

Source: Business Wire

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