Water supply alert issued

GLENDALE — Droughtlike conditions throughout Southern California achieved a new level of importance Wednesday after the region’s main water supplier issued a declaration, asking local municipalities to step up their conservation efforts.

The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California announced a water supply alert that does not call for mandatory restrictions, but does ask cities to ratchet up its efforts to save water in the face of the dry conditions, spokesman Bob Muir said.

“We’re urging local cities to update their drought ordinances,” he said. “A lot of them have them on the books and now it’s time to dust them off.”

The alert follows Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s announcement on June 4 of a statewide drought and comes more than four months after Metropolitan approved a Water Supply Allocation Plan to restrict water deliveries.

Officials could implement the plan — which would require cities to call for mandatory water restrictions — by spring 2009, Muir said.

An unprecedented series of triggers have contributed to dry conditions throughout Southern California.

Low levels of snowpack in the Colorado Basin and Sierra Nevada, an eight-year drought in the Colorado River and a federal court case that has siphoned off water from the Sacramento River/San Joaquin Delta prompted Metropolitan to recommend possible cuts in the local water supply.

Metropolitan’s water deliveries have been cut by nearly 30% as a result of the court-ordered pumping restrictions in the Delta and dry-year reserves have been slashed in half, by 500,000 acre-feet of water, Muir said. An acre-foot of water equals about 325,851 gallons.

“We are eating up our reserves,” he said. “This is the first year we’ve had above average conditions in the Colorado River, but we’ve had record dry conditions there and Gov. Schwarzenegger saw fit to declare a drought in California.”

Metropolitan supplies water to its 26 member agencies in California cities — including about 70% to Glendale and nearly 50% to Burbank — which has led officials to comprise drought ordinances that could possible curtail the local water supply. Such ordinances would work in concert with the allocation plan, Glendale Water & Power Engineer Raja Takidin said.