LOS ANGELES — Southern California water officials took the unprecedented step Tuesday of declaring a water shortage emergency and restricting outdoor watering to just one day a week in parts of Los Angeles, Ventura and San Bernardino counties — an action that will impact about 6 million people.
The outdoor watering restrictions would take effect June 1, according to the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, and apply to areas that are dependent on water from the drought-ravaged State Water Project.
“We are seeing conditions unlike anything we have seen before,” said Adel Hagekhalil, the district’s general manager. “We need serious demand reductions.”
The MWD’s board has never before taken such a step and the resolution adopted by the water wholesaler marks the first widespread water restrictions imposed in Southern California during this most recent period of extreme drought.
With the state’s major reservoirs at low levels, the MWD has been left without enough water to meet demands in parts of Southern California, officials said.
MWD’s board voted to adopt the emergency measures to “reduce non-essential water use” in certain areas. Cities and smaller water suppliers that get water from MWD are required to start restricting outdoor watering to one day a week, or to find other ways to cut usage to a new monthly allocation limit.
Any water suppliers that fail to comply could face large fines from the MWD for exceeding their monthly allocations.
The State Water Project delivers water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta to farmlands and cities to the south. The project includes canals, pipelines, reservoirs and pumping facilities, which transport water to approximately 27 million Californians.
After a record dry start to 2022, California water officials slashed the project’s expected deliveries this year to just 5% of full allocations.
Areas that depend heavily or entirely on the State Water Project include northwestern L.A. County and Ventura County, parts of the San Gabriel Valley and parts of the Inland Empire.
The MWD imports water from the State Water Project and the Colorado River, serving 26 public water agencies across six counties that supply 19 million people, about half the state’s population.
