The Metropolitan Water District is considering a contingency plan to cut water deliveries to its member cities using a new formula that critics contend favors faster-growing areas while penalizing older, poor communities.
The district's staff is recommending the plan in case the agency, which serves 18 million people in six counties, is forced to slash water deliveries this spring in the event of continuing shortages.
This weekend's heavy rainfall will do little to ease those shortages because Southern California depends heavily on imported water that has been reduced by prolonged drought and court-ordered cutbacks, water officials said Sunday.
The current discussion signals growing worries that the region's water supplies cannot meet demand, due to last year's record dry weather, an eight-year drought in the Colorado River Basin and a federal court order last month that sharply reduces water deliveries from Northern California.
The MWD is also considering rate hikes of 10% to 20% for next year, in part to buy more water to shore up supplies.
The new formula for water allocations will be publicly discussed this afternoon in Los Angeles by a panel of the MWD board of directors. A final vote by the full board is not expected until February or March, MWD officials said.
The plan could be activated as early as May, although that is unlikely, the officials said.
The formula recommended by the MWD staff would be the first adopted by the 80-year-old district, which manages the delivery of water to cities from Ventura County to the Mexican border. It acts as a water wholesaler, importing water from Northern California and the Colorado River and selling it to its 26 member cities and water districts.
The agency did not use a formula during the droughts of the late 1970s and early 1990s, instead cutting deliveries by a set percentage across the board.
The proposed formula would determine how much water is allotted to cities and water agencies. Most MWD water is sold to cities at $508 per acre-foot. If a city or agency exceeds its allotment by up to 10%, it would be charged a penalty fee of $1,347 per acre-foot. If it uses even more water, the penalty would be higher. An acre-foot is the amount of water that would cover an acre of land, one foot deep.
The costs would ultimately be borne by ratepayers. All cities and districts would see supplies cut, although details for individual cities were not available last week.
