Water

Walt Staton wanted to help people, and his tool was a water jug. On the morning of Dec. 4, he and three others drove southwest from Tucson, to the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge, which tens of thousands of illegal immigrants traverse each year. But the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said the plastic jugs he left for the immigrants endanger wildlife, and this week Staton was sentenced in federal court in Tucson on a charge of littering. He was given one year of unsupervised probation and ordered to spend 300 hours picking up trash.

Until further notice, it might be wise to carry a life preserver with you at all times in Greater Los Angeles, which had yet another water main eruption early Tuesday. It's like a geyser park out there, and fittingly, the latest gusher was near an L.A. Department of Water and Power distribution station in South Los Angeles. Where and when will the next one blow? I'm visualizing a news conference at which Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa tries to explain the DWP's latest troubles or persuade us he can avert a city budget disaster, and suddenly he's shooting skyward, riding a gusher.

A cash-strapped conservation credit program run by the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California has stopped paying vendors and customers for installing water-saving toilets and appliances. Though the program has been deemed highly successful, demand for the rebates has increased threefold over the last two years. In May, the water district moved to suspend the program, said Bob Muir, a spokesman for it.

In the scorching deserts of the Arabian Peninsula, water is always precious, carefully rationed, never wasted. Possessing it separates life from death. What a difference a few miles -- and bucket loads of money -- can make. At Atlantis, the Palm, Dubai's latest and possibly greatest luxury hotel to date, water is an ornament and a plaything. It flows in ridiculous, seemingly endless quantities, simply for the pleasure of it.

Beginning Sunday, about 45,000 residents in the Antelope Valley will have limited water supply for a week because of system upgrades, officials at Los Angeles County's Waterworks Districts said Thursday. The reduction in water will affect the agency's District 40 customers in Lancaster and western Palmdale, who are served by the Quartz Hill Water Treatment Plant. The plant will be completely shut down from 6 a.m. Sunday through 6 p.m.

Some Southern California households would pay up to 14% more per month for water in 2009 under a plan unanimously approved Monday by a key regional water panel. The water rate increase, driven by shortages in supplies, would vary widely depending on how much water cities and local water agencies buy from the MWD, which serves 18 million consumers in six counties.

Local water authorities have begun closing some of the state's prime fishing lakes in an effort to keep an infestation of tiny quagga mussels from fouling drinking water supplies for nearly 375,000 residents and threatening fish populations. The closure two weeks ago of Lake Casitas, a favorite of bass anglers, to recreational boat use was followed within days by similar action at Westlake Lake in eastern Ventura County.

New snowpack measurements from the Sierra Nevada released Wednesday dashed hopes that California's stormy winter would make a significant dent in the state's water supply woes. The measurements found that snowpack levels have returned to average because of a dry March. Wet weather beginning in November sent snow levels far above average, prompting officials to hope that conditions would continue into spring and provide more water. But California is back in familiar dry mode.

An agency that supplies water to 2 million residents of southeast Los Angeles County has filed suit to overturn a new Southern California drought plan, saying it inequitably allocates water and "robs from the poor to pay the cost of new development in more affluent areas." The Los Angeles County Superior Court lawsuit brought by the Commerce-based Central Basin Municipal Water District challenges the water allocation plan approved Feb.

Fighting a fierce north wind and cresting waves, a dozen Cucapa Indian fishermen were in trouble before they were halfway home, their small boats and balky outboard motors overmatched by the roiling estuary of the Colorado River Delta. "Malo viento," muttered Julio Figueroa, as he nosed his boat slowly through the wind-whipped waves, his feet submerged in 10 inches of standing water. Boats have capsized and men have drowned in these waters, where river and sea collide.