Metropolitan Water District committee votes to curtail water allocations

A board committee for Southern California's largest water wholesaler has voted to cut the amount of supplies it'll sell to its member cities as a result of the worsening drought. 

If the proposal is approved by the full board of the Metropolitan Water Districts on Tuesday, cities supplied by the agency will get 15 percent less water than they've requested for the coming year. Some committee members had pushed for 20 percent. The cuts would take effect this summer.

“What we’re really trying to do is manage our storage reserves, as opposed to exactly what’s going to happen at the household level,” said MWD General Manager Jeffrey Kightlinger.

MWD buys water from Northern California and the Colorado River and sells it to 26 water districts across Southern California and San Diego County. More than 19 million people get water supplied by the agency.

The agency has cut water allocations in the past — most recently in 2010. MWD has been signaling for months reductions were in the offing this year.

The board committee also voted to impose steep surcharges on agencies that want to buy more water than their reduced allocation. Surcharges range from $1,480 per acre-foot up to $2,960 per acre-foot.

"The costs of the surcharges for our member agencies can be very dramatic,” Kightlinger said. “They can be almost double, and then quadruple.” 

Any revenues from the surcharges would be used to fund MWD's rebate program encouraging homeowners and businesses to rip out their lawns in favor of drought-tolerant landscaping.

Similar fines were also provided for during the last round of allocation cuts in 2010, but none of the member water agencies exceeded their allotments and no fines were issued.

Monday's vote also offered a glimpse into how urban water agencies in Southern California are responding to the mandate from Gov. Jerry Brown that urban areas cut water use collectively by a quarter.

Regulators at the State Water Resources Control Board last week proposed a framework of restrictions that would hit the highest water users hardest. Cities with the highest daily use rates would face 35 percent cuts, while already-efficient communities would need to implement limits of just 10 percent. Metropolitan and some of its member agencies are lobbying to lower proposed reduction targets some cities in Southern California -- like Los Angeles and Long Beach -- arguing they have already been implementing conservation measures for several years and should get more credit for them.