Officials eye water measures

GLENDALE — Despite the recent rain, a perfect storm of water deprivation is brewing across the Southland that has local water officials preparing to impose strict water-use controls.

The outlook for a rejuvenated water supply next year is neutral at best, water officials say. Rain totals for the year remain abysmal, response from Glendale residents to calls for voluntary conservation has been tepid, the National Weather Service is predicting a dry winter, and federal courts threaten to tie up water deliveries from Northern California.

“Things are not good, but that’s today’s assessment,” said Peter Kavounas, the city’s water services administrator.

If the assessment is the same in February — when regional water suppliers are expected to know exactly how much water they have to work with — Glendale residents will likely see their utility move from voluntary conservation efforts toward instituting mandatory controls, Kavounas said.

But water officials are pessimistic about the chances of an improved assessment of the state’s water supply early next year.

A federal judge in August ordered cuts in pumping from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to protect an endangered fish, the delta smelt. Officials with the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California — which supplies Glendale with more than 70% of its water — say that could decrease their allotment from the delta up to 30%.

The same court is hearing a similar environmental case over chinook salmon that could further restrict water supplies through the State Water Project to the regional supplier.

The Colorado River, the next major source of water for Metropolitan, remains weak because of a continuing eight-year drought.

And local weather conditions have been slow to break the effects of drought across the Southland, climatologists said.

In November, the National Weather Service announced the Sierra Nevada snowpack was about 3% of normal. Locally, the Glendale area is 0.8 inches below normal for the rain season, which begins July 1, said Bob Gregg, a Glendale weather observer for the Los Angeles County Flood Control District.

But since Jan. 1, rainfall totals are more than 13 inches below normal, he said.

“We need to get a lot more rain,” he said.