Water Conservation or Rationing?
Mayor Villaraigosa got his photo op in today’s Los Angeles Times and behind him were members of the 15 strong Drought Busters.
That should be enough drought busters to cover the seven council members who use well over 100,000 gallons each annually, the mayor himself who uses over 380,000 gallons annually and the city attorney Rocky Delgadillo uses an astounding 1,183 gallons per day!
The Drought Busters could fine the mayor if he doesn’t cut back to 90% of his current usage which would mean he would have to make do with only 342,000 gallons.
But while the mayor and the other city leaders can be classified as water wasters, it’s not their personal use that is causing today’s water shortage problem – it’s their policies! Los Angeles has done an admirable job staying within our means over the last fifteen years but the current building binge threatens to undo all that.
Conservation or rationing?
With all of the building permits being issued for the ten of thousands of new high density housing units and affordable housing, you have to wonder if the cities residents are really being encouraged into conservation because of the ongoing drought or are we being herded into a permanent rationing program because of over development?
Water Facts
Since 1970 the city of Los Angeles has never received more than 531,000 acre feet of water (af) through its own aqueduct. The aqueduct has been highly unreliable in terms of a consistent supply of water because of highly fluctuating sierra snow pack. To augment this supply, the LADWP has had to rely on groundwater supplies and water imports from the Metropolitan Water District.
Between the three sources, LA’s water supply has never exceeded 707,548 af and despite $16.6 billion in state water bonds approved by voters that promised to “providing new water supplies and supporting water conservation programs” neither the state nor LADWP has been able to live up to that promise and increase supplies as the population continues to rise.
In 1970 the average LADWP resident received over 67,382 gallons each annually. That rose to 69,140 gallons in 1981. However during drought, water supplies fell to a record low of 562,037 af in 1992 and through conservation efforts, the average user received 52,569 gallons each. Today our water use has dropped further to 54,675 gallons annually per person.
No new supplies
Historical water supply levels along with a number of developing factors appear to indicate that we will not be able to increase the 1970 to 2006 average of 626,091 af water supply that we’ve been receiving.
Those factors include court ordered redirecting of 40% of Los Angeles Aqueduct water back to Mono Lake and the Owens Valley, court ordered reduced pumping by MWD of Sacramento Delta water to protect the Delta Smelt and byright upstream consumption of water along the Colorado river by states such as Nevada.
But the largest factor that prohibits any increase in Los Angeles water supply have been the huge increases in housing developments in the surrounding southern California counties. Each of these counties rely almost entirely on MWD to supply their water.
Because of the inability of the LADWP and the MWD to be able to increase water supplies necessary for the growth that our city leaders insist on, and as LA’s population edges upward to 5.2 million people, we will see our average volunteer use become allotments as it drops from 54,675 to 38,766 gallons.
Los Angeles County’s population without sensible controls is expected to increase by 3.4 million people by 2050. By the same token Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego and Orange populations are expected to increase by 7.8 million. All without any firm guarantees that we can meet their requirements at today’s levels.
What began as conservation years ago will become rationing and neither Mayor Villaraigosa or any of the other city leaders who encouraged smart growth will be smiling in front of cameras anymore.
[...] days after I used the R word here, the Los Angeles Times published an article by Hector Becerra titled Southland to buy [...]