As forecasts tease California with rainstorms this week, the state’s reservoirs are already flush with water.
It’s a big departure from a year ago: The state’s major reservoirs — which store water collected mostly from rivers in the northern portion of the state — are in good shape, with levels at 124% of average.
Climate change is wreaking havoc on the water systems that Californians rely on, from the Sierra Nevada to the Colorado River basin.
No one knows that better than Adel Hagekhalil, who as general manager of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, is at the epicenter of the state’s most intractable water woes.
In the minds of many Californians, El Niño has long loomed as a rainmaker of epic proportions. In 1982-83, the Pacific climate pattern caused storms that pounded the state’s shoreline, damaging 1,000 homes between Santa Barbara and the Mexican border and washing the tip of the Santa Monica Pier out to sea.
The seven states that share the Colorado River’s water celebrated some conservation wins at their annual meeting here this week but quickly began sparring over who will bear the brunt of future pain that they agree a drying climate will dole out.
The Biden administration has announced new water-saving agreements with California water agencies intended to shore up supplies on the overburdened Colorado River.
When the highest stakes water negotiations in a century opened this fall, the largest, most powerful state — California — was represented by the youngest person at the table, a 27-year-old named John Brooks Hamby, who graduated from college barely four years ago.
Over the next two decades, Los Angeles County will collect billions more gallons in water from local sources, especially storm and reclaimed water, shifting from its reliance on other region’s water supplies as the effects of climate change make such efforts less reliable and more expensive.
The Imperial Irrigation District in California, which uses more Colorado River water than any other farm district or city in the West, has agreed to conserve 100,000 acre-feet in 2023 in exchange for payments from the federal government. It’s less than half the amount of water the district originally proposed saving last spring.
Sixteen cities, including four in the U.S., signed a commitment to protect vulnerable communities from severe flooding and drought through C40 Cities’ new Water Safe Cities Accelerator, launched on Nov. 22.
In a pivotal move addressing California’s water conservation goals and reinforcing partnerships in the face of the ongoing Colorado River drought, the Metropolitan Water District is seeking authorization for its General Manager to establish agreements with the Coachella Valley Water District, Imperial Irrigation District, and San Diego County Water Authority. These agreements aim to facilitate the addition of water to Lake Mead under the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation’s Lower Colorado River Basin System Conservation and Efficiency Program for the year 2023.
