DROUGHT 'LOOKING GRIM' — Far from Washington, the unfolding water crisis in the west can be hard to follow. It’s one similarly dire projection after another for Southern California’s two major water sources: the Colorado River, which serves 40 million people in the U.S. and Mexico, and the rivers flowing from the Sierra Nevada mountains that have been diverted toward Los Angeles. Climate change has sapped them both. But for the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, the nation’s largest water supplier, the time for crying wolf is over. Last week, the agency ordered 6 million of the 19 million people it serves to quickly cut their use to keep demand from exceeding supply in the next few months. Metropolitan was created to bring water to L.A. from rivers hundreds of miles away. Now those supplies are dwindling to emergency levels as the Sierra faces dry year after dry year and decades of overuse and drought chip away at the Colorado. “At first glance, Met looks like it has the most diversified water supply of any water supply in the world,” said Brad Udall, a water and climate scientist at Colorado State University. “What we’re finding out is that climate change is affecting broad swaths of the globe, and the American southwest is one of these places where we’re seeing lots of aridification." Metropolitan’s response has created another potential problem in that the cuts don’t affect everyone equally, which could further test its image as a regional water supplier and bedrock of stability. Some areas are being spared for now because they don’t depend on water from the Sierras. Instead, they continue to depend largely on Colorado River water, which is also dwindling but doesn’t face the same immediate shortages. Metropolitan’s general manager, Adel Hagekhalil, said it's his “No. 1 priority” to be able to get Colorado River water to more parts of his system that depend on Sierra water. But that's not sustainable, either. "I wouldn't feel like I won the lottery if I had Colorado River water,” said Felicia Marcus, who led the State Water Resources Control Board during Gov. Jerry Brown’s administration. “They've been in a 20-year drought, and it's just looking grim.” On the other side are those who think California can build its way out of drought and are worried about the political fallout from supply cuts. “I think you’re going to see a lot of that discord in areas where you have elected water directors,” said Brett Barbre, a former member of the Metropolitan board who represented Orange County and supports more water infrastructure, including tunnels that would have brought more water south from the Sierra or dams that could store water. A big but: State politicians have been warning of the system's problems — and trying to build more infrastructure — for decades. During both his stints as governor, Brown tried to build projects that would send more Sierra water south, but he couldn’t get them over the finish line. Gov. Gavin Newsom isn't crazy about the idea, so while such a project remains theoretically alive, it’s also realistically dead. The supply cuts could help the case for desalination. San Diego has already built a desalination plant, and Orange County is looking to build one as well. And several cities, including San Diego and Los Angeles, are looking at recycling projects that could turn wastewater into drinking water.
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