Metropolitan Partners With Federal Government to Help Water Levels in Historic-Low Lake Mead
Agreement will add up to 200,000 acre-feet of Colorado River water in the reservoir this year, supporting hydropower generation
With the water level at Lake Mead projected to soon reach its lowest point since it was initially filled, Metropolitan Water District is working with the federal government to help add water to the reservoir and protect hydropower generation at Hoover Dam, under an agreement approved today by Metropolitan's Board of Directors.
Under terms of the agreement, the United States Bureau of Reclamation will compensate Metropolitan for leaving up to 200,000 acre-feet of its Colorado River supplies in Lake Mead this year. (An acre-foot is about 326,000 gallons, enough water to serve roughly three households.) The action is possible because of three decades of major investments in diverse water sources, storage and conservation. Water from the Colorado River and Northern California provide about half of the water supply for 19 million people in Southern California.
"Over the last 30 years, we've transformed how Southern California secures its water future. By investing in diverse water supplies, incentivizing conservation, and capturing and storing water whenever it's available, we've added resilience to our system," said Metropolitan Board Chair Adán Ortega, Jr., adding that Metropolitan and its ratepayers have invested $1.7 billion in conservation, water recycling and groundwater recovery since 1990, producing over 8.8 million acre-feet of water. "Those decades of forward-thinking investments allow us to step forward and help stabilize the Colorado River when it needs us most."
