Water Shortages

It could be a hot and thirsty holiday for a few Malibu residents. Although county engineers have replenished most of the water tanks and restored service to about 98% of Malibu's homes after last weekend's water main break near Big Rock Drive, more than 140 residences are still suffering a drought. Most of the parched households are at higher elevations. Once the water pressure builds back to proper levels in the next week, the arid estates again will become oases.

You can imagine the jokes: Malibu's water supply dried up Sunday--the Perrier guys went on strike. Malibu residents faced a moral quandary this weekend: Should they use their last bottle of Evian to wash the BMW or Mercedes? No wonder Malibu-ites ran out of water--they kept soaking the rest of us to clean up after their disasters. Very funny--unless, of course, you happen to live or work in Malibu.

Even as it prepares to pull its troops out of West Bank towns and villages, Israel has infuriated the Palestinians by insisting that it will not relinquish control over the area's critical water resources. So serious is the dispute over water that both sides say they may not be able to resolve it in time to meet their July 25 deadline for signing an agreement expanding Palestinian self-rule to the West Bank.

Hundreds of thousands of survivors of an earthquake that killed more than 3,100 people in and around the western port city of Kobe entered their third day today with no water, gas or electricity, and frustration mounted as no clear outlook emerged for a return to normalcy. Even food was in short supply as an estimated 240,000 people spent another night in cars, parks, public halls and schools. Still missing and presumed trapped in debris were 879 people, police said.

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.

With a key vote just weeks away, cities and water agencies across the region are scrambling to figure out the ramifications of a first-ever shortage allocation plan that would govern water deliveries to communities stretching from the Santa Monica Mountains to the Inland Empire and south to the Mexican border.

A controversial Southern California drought plan that has divided area cities is expected to win approval today from the Metropolitan Water District board, with strong backing from Los Angeles and San Diego. The allocation plan, a guide for divvying up water among 26 cities and districts during a severe shortage, won unanimous approval Monday from a key MWD panel. The full board will take up the plan at noon today, although recent rains may forestall its use this year.

The West's great reservoirs, Lake Mead and Lake Powell, could run dry by 2021 without a drastic change in water consumption, according to an analysis released Tuesday. The two reservoirs, which now contain 25 million acre-feet of water, are losing about 1 million acre-feet a year as a result of rising demand and persistent drought. The study, to be published in the journal Water Resources Research, analyzed how global warming is likely to increase the strain on the Colorado River.

The Metropolitan Water District board Tuesday approved a much-disputed drought plan despite protests from officials in some southeastern Los Angeles County cities who complained that low-income residents would be penalized with higher rates. Using a weighted voting system that is keyed to property valuation and not population, the 37-member board voted 176,523 to 14,265 to support the plan.

The early history of Los Angeles was defined by its struggle to get water wherever, and whenever, it could. William Mulholland and his colleagues did such a good job of securing water supplies during the early 20th century -- building the 223-mile-long, gravity-fed Los Angeles Aqueduct, which imports water from the Owens Valley; establishing the Metropolitan Water District, which brings in water from the Colorado River and Northern California -- that...