Southern California Agricultural Water Team

WATER CONDITIONS

Tight Supply from Colorado River Could Hike Water Rates

As of February 8, 2007, the snow pack in the Colorado River watershed is only 76 percent of normal. The projection of runoff to the Colorado River for the water year is only 10 million acre-feet (keeping in mind that the upper basin, the lower basin and the Republic Mexico share 15 million acre-feet a year. The deficit will come from already depleted storage. Lake Powell is at 48 percent of capacity and falling. Lake Mead is at 55 percent of capacity and increasing slightly. Water released from Powell that is not consumptively used flows into Mead, so these two large reservoirs must be viewed in tandem. It isn’t good. Total storage last year was 57 percent of capacity and there was hope that the reservoirs would begin to recover this year. In fact, system storage has decreased one percent. One percent may not sound like much, but when one was expecting an increase, any decrease is bad news. What this means is that the Colorado River system is going to take longer to recover than originally hoped unless there is some rainfall in Biblical proportions during the next three or four years. Without the reservoirs recovered, Metropolitan will not have access to any surplus water and will be pretty much stuck with its basic entitlement plus transfers and some stored water in Lake Mead.

On a similar note, the State Water Project, MWD’s other primary source of supply, started the water year in great shape – lots of storage, some early season rainfall, a little snow. The Department of Water Resources announced a 60 percent allocation for contractors (including MWD) in November. That was a large allocation compared to other years and reflected both water in storage and DWR’s optimism about rain and snowfall. Well, the rain and snowfall haven’t happened and DWR is stuck at 60 percent allocations. That gives MWD a little under 1.2 million acre-feet for the year. Demands are about 2 million acre-feet and MWD will take about 800,000 from the Colorado through various programs. The deficit will come from storage. All of this does not bode well for 2008. Water demands will be met this year but absent some decent winter precipitation beginning in October 2007, calendar year 2008 will be very tight. The really bad news is that if water conditions are tight enough for MWD to press hard on conservation; their total sales will naturally go down. Their budget is built on deliveries of about 2.2 million acre-feet. If they are forced to deliver less than that because supplies are short they will experience a cash-flow problem. That problem will be solved with higher rates and/or more depletions from reserves – which will result in increased rates later on in order the restore their reserve accounts.

And while that is going on, the Quagga Mussel flexes its muscle by appearing in Lake Havasu and two locations in MWD’s distribution system near the Colorado River. MWD has allocated $180,000 out of budget to begin the Quagga Mussel battle. If they don’t catch it before it enters the main Colorado River aqueduct expect ever-increasing amounts of money to spent trying to eradicate this critter.

Other news:

This is the driest year on record at the Los Angeles Civic Center
Imperial County has received only 4 percent of normal rainfall
San Diego has received only 40 percent of normal rainfall
Mammoth Lakes has received only 34 percent of normal
Runoff at the Sacramento River is projected at 3 million acre-feet compared to a normal year of 18.4 million acre-feet
And the only good news: State Water Project total system storage is 83 percent of capacity. (Of course, last year at this time it was at 85 percent of capacity, but one takes one’s good news where one can find it.