SoCal agency orders water cuts

LOS ANGELES —- With the region confronting one of the worst water shortages in state history, Southern California’s primary supplier voted Tuesday to cut deliveries an average of 10 percent this summer and to hike water rates an average of 26 percent on Sept. 21.

For residents of San Diego and Riverside counties, it means people are going to be paying more for their water even as they are being told to use less.

Metropolitan Water District’s decision, triggered by a drier-than-usual year in the Sierra Nevada and environmental restrictions on pumping from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, set the stage for the most severe cutback in deliveries to San Diego, Riverside and other Southern California counties since 1991.

It marks only the third time since Metropolitan began delivering water in 1941 that the agency has cut deliveries to residential water users. The agency cut deliveries 17 percent in 1991 and 10 percent in 1977.

Local farmers already are coping with a 30 percent reduction put into effect last year.

Now, the regional supplier that pipes in water from Northern California and the Colorado River is going to cut deliveries across the board an average of 10 percent for the 12-month period that begins July 1.

For San Diego County, that will mean a 13 percent cut in deliveries from Metropolitan, which provides three-fourths of the county’s water, said John Liarakos, spokesman for the San Diego County Water Authority.

With the combination of those agriculture and urban cuts, Metropolitan will be delivering 20 percent less water than a couple of years ago to the nearly 20 million people it serves from Ventura to the U.S.-Mexico border, said Jeffrey Kightlinger, district general manager, following the meeting.

“Today is really a historic day —- a day many of us hoped we would never come to,” board Chairman Timothy Brick of Pasadena told his colleagues.

“This represents the end of the era of cheap water,” he said.

Exactly what the decisions mean for water users in San Diego and Riverside counties will be determined in the next few weeks, because Metropolitan decisions don’t affect homeowners and businesses directly. Metropolitan’s cuts affect member agencies, which in turn decide whether to pass on a portion or all of the cuts and rate hikes to local communities.

“Each agency is going to be a little different,” said board member Keith Lewinger of Fallbrook, who represents North County on behalf of the San Diego County Water Authority on the big, 37-member regional panel. “Each agency is going to decide for themselves whether they are going to go to mandatory conservation.”

For example, the county Water Authority is scheduled April 23 to consider moving San Diego County from level one and voluntary conservation on the authority’s four-stage drought index to level two and mandatory conservation.

Eastern and Western Municipal Water Districts plan to consider similar measures in the coming days.

Eastern and Western buy water directly from Metropolitan and distribute it to Riverside County communities. The county Water Authority is the Metropolitan customer that distributes water to San Diego County.

Officials from the Riverside County agencies say an average 10 percent cut from Metropolitan is likely to translate into a 6 percent to 10 percent reduction in supply locally because they have other sources of water —- though the big Los Angeles wholesaler still provides by far most of their water.

And the 10 percent regional reduction doesn’t mean Southern California will run out of water if home gardeners, golf courses and businesses refuse to curb their consumption.

What it does mean, however, is that Metropolitan is poised to hammer the county Water Authority and other regional distributors with hefty penalties if they don’t stay within their allocations.

And those penalties will come on top of the rate increases Metropolitan adopted Tuesday, which Kightlinger said could boost homeowners’ monthly bills 2 percent to 5 percent depending on where they live.

The board decided to raise residential rates for untreated water from $412 per acre-foot to $484, an increase of 17 percent. Also on Sept. 1, rates are set to rise from $579 per acre-foot of water to $701, or by 21 percent, for treated urban water, and from $465 per acre-foot to $587 for treated agricultural water, an increase of 26 percent.

An acre-foot is 326,000 gallons, or the amount two families use in a year.

About half of the increase is being driven by something Metropolitan is calling a “delta surcharge,” which covers costs the district is incurring as it defends lawsuits, studies environmental problems and searches for other supplies to replace what has been lost from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, Kightlinger said.

He said the rest of the increase is meant to cover increasing costs of chemicals and electricity in treating and pumping water.

Brick said the rate increase and supply decrease are associated with one of the greatest challenges Metropolitan has faced since it was formed in 1928.

And the frustrating part is that, after steep cutbacks in 1991, Metropolitan vowed to avoid such reductions in the future, embarking on an aggressive program of conservation and recycling, and building reservoirs such as Diamond Valley Lake.

But even with all those measures, Brick said, the region is having to significantly curb water use. That’s partly because snow levels in the Sierras are 20 percent below normal following three straight dry years.

But it’s even more the result of new restrictions on pumping from the delta, where the melting Sierra snow flows, aimed at preventing the endangered delta smelt fish from being harmed. And those restrictions are expected to be permanent.

Contact staff writer Dave Downey at (760) 745-6611, Ext. 2623, or ddowney@nctimes.com.

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