Water district overview | |
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Formed | 1928 |
Headquarters | 700 North Alameda Street, Los Angeles, California 34°3′17″N118°14′11″W / 34.05472°N 118.23639°W |
Water district executive |
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Website | www |
The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California is a regional wholesaler and the largest supplier of treated water in the United States. The name is usually shortened to "Met," "Metropolitan," or "MWD." It is a cooperative of fourteen cities, eleven municipal water districts, and one county water authority, that provides water to 19 million people in a 5,200-square-mile (13,000 km2) service area. It was created by an act of the California State Legislature in 1928, primarily to build and operate the Colorado River Aqueduct. Metropolitan became the first (and largest) contractor to the State Water Project in 1960.
Metropolitan owns and operates an extensive range of capital facilities including the Colorado River Aqueduct which runs from an intake at Lake Havasu on the California-Arizona border to its endpoint at the Lake Mathews reservoir in Riverside County. It also imports water supplies from northern California via the 444-mile (715 km) California Aqueduct as a contractor to the State Water Project. In 1960, Metropolitan became the first (and largest) contractor to the State Water Project. Metropolitan's extensive water system includes three major reservoirs, six smaller reservoirs, 830 miles (1,340 km) of large-scale pipes, about 400 connections to member agencies, 16 hydroelectric facilities and five water treatment plants.
It serves parts of Los Angeles, Orange, San Diego, Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura counties. The district covers the coastal and most heavily populated portions of Southern California while large portions of San Diego, San Bernardino and Riverside counties are located outside of its service area.
The Metropolitan headquarters is in downtown Los Angeles, adjacent to Los Angeles Union Station.
In the early 20th century, Southern California cities were faced with a growing population and shrinking local groundwater supplies. The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California was established in 1928 under an act of the California Legislature to build and operate the 242-mile Colorado River Aqueduct (389 km) that would bring water to southern coastal areas. Southland residents voted for a major bond in the depths of the Great Depression to fund the construction effort through the desert to deliver essential water supplies and generate badly needed jobs.[ citation needed ]
The post-World War II boom and 1950s dry spells prompted a huge expansion of the Metropolitan service area as new cities began seeking additional reliable water supplies.[ citation needed ]
In 1960, Metropolitan, along with 30 other public agencies, signed a long-term contract that made possible the construction of the State Water Project, including reservoirs, pumping plants and the 444-mile California Aqueduct (715 km), which serves urban and agricultural agencies from the San Francisco Bay to Southern California. As the largest of the now 29 agencies, Metropolitan contracts with the state Department of Water Resources, which owns and operates the State Water Project, for slightly less than half of all supplies delivered to Metropolitan.[ citation needed ]
Metropolitan is governed by a board of 38 directors whose powers and functions are specified in the 1927 authorization act. [2] This board was in charge of issuing bonds and financing their repayment by selling water to member agencies. In the early years, revenue from water sales was too low, so Metropolitan also collected taxes that ranged from 0.25 to 0.50 percent of assessed value. Ninety percent of the cost of the aqueduct has been paid for by the taxpayers. In 1929 the district was set up with an area of 600 square miles (1,600 km2) and served a population of around 1,600,000 in 13 cities. [3]
During the aqueduct's first five years of service from 1941 to 1946 it delivered an average of about 27,000 acre-feet (33,000,000 m3) of water, using less than 2% of its capacity. Only one pump at each lift, operating from one to six months out of the year, was needed to meet all the demands made on the system. At this time, due to availability of ground water, less than 10% of the Colorado River Aqueduct's capacity was used, only 178,000 acre-feet (220,000,000 m3) of water. [4]
The San Diego County Water Authority joined Metropolitan as its first wholesale member agency in 1946. SDCWA was formed in 1944 to facilitate joining Metropolitan, received its first deliveries in 1947 and was buying half of Metropolitan's water by 1949. The SDCWA annexation broke two traditions at Metropolitan: Member agencies had previously been cities (SDCWA was a water wholesaler) in the south coast basin (SDCWA was south of the basin). The next break came in 1950, when Pomona MWD (now Three Valleys MWD) joined Metropolitan. Since Pomona was a largely agricultural member agency at the time, Metropolitan was no longer selling water only for domestic use. [5] : 13, 28–32 The territory served by the Pomona district has urbanized rapidly, with agriculture having disappeared almost entirely by 1970.
In 1952, Metropolitan began a 200 million dollar program to bring the Colorado River Aqueduct to its full capacity of 1,212,000 acre-feet (1.495×109 m3) annually. The Colorado River Aqueduct added six pumps to the original three at each of its five pumping stations. CRA pumping expanded from about 16,500 acre-feet (20,400,000 m3) of water in 1950 to about 1,029,000 acre-feet (1.269×109 m3) by 1960. On August 9, 1962, the Metropolitan set an all-time delivery record of 1,316,000,000 gallons of water in just a 24-hour period.[ citation needed ]
Metropolitan's additional supplies and easier rules of entry facilitated an expansion through annexation of large areas of low populations: The eight MWDs that joined from 1946 to 1955 added 200 percent to Metropolitan's service area but only 75 percent to Metropolitan's population served. [5] : 32 By 1965, Metropolitan had 13 cities and 13 municipal water districts as members. It covered more than 4,500 square miles (12,000 km2) and served some 10,000,000 people.[ citation needed ]
By 2008 Metropolitan had 14 cities and 12 municipal water districts (San Fernando joined in 1973; MWDOC and Coastal MWD merged in 2001) and provided water to nearly 10,000,000 people. [6] As of 2021 [update] , Metropolitan with 26 member agencies and cities served nearly 19 million people in the counties of Los Angeles, Ventura, Orange, San Diego, Riverside, and San Bernardino. [2]
In 2019 the Metropolitan Water District played a crucial role in the development of the Colorado River Drought Contingency Plan (DCP). The Drought Contingency Plan aims to implement legislation to reduce the risk of declining levels in the Colorado River reservoirs, particularly by incentivizing agencies to store additional water in Lake Powell and Lake Mead. [7] In 2018, the Imperial Irrigation District elected to not execute the DCP and the Metropolitan Water District agreed to provide the full portion of water storage contributions to Lake Mead. [8] By the end of 2020, MWD will have nearly stored 1 million acre-feet in Lake Mead and contributing to 12 feet (3.7 m) of Lake Mead's elevation. [8]
The State Water Project moves water from the western Sierra Nevada through the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta before delivering supplies—via the California Aqueduct to Southern California. Once in the south coastal plain, deliveries are split between the SWP's West Branch, storing water in Castaic Lake for delivery to the west side of the Los Angeles metropolitan area, and the East Branch, which delivers water to the Inland Empire and the south and east parts of the Los Angeles Basin.
The Colorado River Aqueduct begins at Lake Havasu, just north of Parker Dam, and travels 242 miles (389 km) west to Lake Mathews in southwest Riverside County. Water is first pumped 125 miles (201 km) uphill through a series of five pumping plants approaching Chiriaco Summit, then flows 117 miles (188 km) downhill towards Los Angeles.
Metropolitan contracts for about 2 MAF/Y (million acre feet per year) from the State Water Project and 1.35 MAF/Y from the Colorado River Aqueduct, but actual delivery amounts depend on a conditions including hydrology, infrastructure and regulatory conditions . Between 1984 and 2004 the actual deliveries were 0.7 MAF/Y from the SWP and 1.2 MAF/Y from the CRA. The SWP allotment is rarely met, if at all, due to restrictions on the amount of water that can be pumped from the Delta. A minimum freshwater flow has to pass through the Delta in order to prevent salinity intrusion from San Francisco Bay, and the removal of freshwater from the Delta has also threatened multiple species, such as native chinook salmon. [5] [9]
The Inland Feeder project [10] added a direct tunnel and pipeline connection from Silverwood Lake to Diamond Valley Lake and was completed in 2010.
The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California reservoirs store fresh water for use in Los Angeles, Orange, Ventura, Riverside, San Bernardino, and San Diego counties. These reservoirs were built specifically to preserve water during times of drought, and are in place for emergencies uses such as earthquake, floods or other events.
Metropolitan maintains three major water reservoirs. One is Lake Mathews located in southwest Riverside, California, with a capacity of 182,000 acre-feet (224,000,000 m3) of water. Another is Lake Skinner located south of Hemet in Riverside County, its capacity is 44,000 acre-feet (54,000,000 m3) of water. Diamond Valley Lake is their third and newest reservoir, with a capacity of 810,000 acre-feet (1.00×109 m3) of water. This capacity is over twice as large as that of Castaic Lake, the next largest reservoir in Southern California maintained by the state Department of Water Resources.
Metropolitan partly funded the Brock Reservoir project with $28.6 million. In return for their contribution, California can each use 100,000 acre-feet (120,000,000 m3) of water starting in 2016.
Metropolitan operates five treatment plants:
They collectively filter water for more than 19 million Southern Californians. [16] Metropolitan employs over 2,100 people to maintain and do research at these facilities,[ citation needed ] including scientists specializing in chemistry, microbiology, and limnology (the study of lakes and rivers).
Metropolitan's water treatment plants each use a conventional 5-step treatment process as follows: [17]
Following the conventional treatment process, chlorine and ammonia are added to the water to form chloramines and maintain a disinfectant residual in the distribution system. Sodium hydroxide is added as a corrosion control measure to adjust the pH level and protect pipes and plumbing fixtures. Also, fluoride is added to help prevent dental caries in children as recommended by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Every year trained scientists and technicians perform more than 320,000 analytical tests on more than 50,000 samples.[ citation needed ] Metropolitan Water District has various EPA Environmental Protection Agency approved methods used to for the detection of bacteria, viruses, protozoan parasites, chemical contaminants and toxins.
In partnership with the Sanitation Districts of Los Angeles County and the Metropolitan Water District, The Regional Recycled Water Program will introduce purified and treated wastewater that will replenish groundwater basins across Los Angeles and Orange Counties that aims to potentially accommodate direct potable reuse demands in the near future. [18] The program includes 60 miles (97 km) of new pipelines to convey the treated water across four regional groundwater basins, an industrial facility, and two MWD treatment plants.
The program calls for a water treatment facility that would be one of the largest in the nation, producing 150 million gallons per day or 168 thousand acre-feet per year of purified water. [19] Before the full-scale facility is developed, a 0.5 million gallon per day demonstration facility, The Advanced Purification Center, in Carson will test, treat, and operate to ensure the highest quality standards of wastewater treatment are met prior to the development of the new facility. [19] The construction and application of a membrane bioreactors in the demonstration facility cost nearly $17 million dollars and the total cost of building the full-scale program will be $3.4 billion, resulting in an annual operation cost of $129 million, and water cost of $1,830 per acre-foot. [19] The full scale treatment facility would serve 500,000 homes daily and deliver a purified source of water to the four regional groundwater basins: Central, West Coast, Main San Gabriel, and Orange County. [8]
Metropolitan list of member agencies:
The Los Angeles Aqueduct system, comprising the Los Angeles Aqueduct and the Second Los Angeles Aqueduct, is a water conveyance system, built and operated by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. The Owens Valley aqueduct was designed and built by the city's water department, at the time named The Bureau of Los Angeles Aqueduct, under the supervision of the department's Chief Engineer William Mulholland. The system delivers water from the Owens River in the eastern Sierra Nevada mountains to Los Angeles.
The Governor Edmund G. Brown California Aqueduct is a system of canals, tunnels, and pipelines that conveys water collected from the Sierra Nevada Mountains and valleys of Northern and Central California to Southern California. Named after California Governor Edmund Gerald "Pat" Brown Sr., the over 400-mile (640 km) aqueduct is the principal feature of the California State Water Project.
The Colorado River Aqueduct, or CRA, is a 242 mi (389 km) water conveyance in Southern California in the United States, operated by the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (MWD). The aqueduct impounds water from the Colorado River at Lake Havasu on the California-Arizona border, west across the Mojave and Colorado deserts to the east side of the Santa Ana Mountains. It is one of the primary sources of drinking water for Southern California.
The Central Arizona Project (CAP) is a 336 mi (541 km) diversion canal in Arizona in the southern United States.
Diamond Valley Lake is a man-made off-stream reservoir located near Hemet, California, United States. It is one of the largest reservoirs in Southern California and one of the newest. It has a capacity of 800,000 acre-feet (990,000,000 m3). The lake nearly doubled the area's surface water storage capacity and provides additional water supplies for drought, peak summer, and emergency needs.
Parker Dam is a concrete arch-gravity dam that crosses the Colorado River 155 miles (249 km) downstream of Hoover Dam. Built between 1934 and 1938 by the Bureau of Reclamation, it is 320 feet (98 m) high, 235 feet (72 m) of which are below the riverbed (the deep excavation was necessary in order to reach the bedrock on which the foundation of the dam was built), making it the deepest dam in the world. The portion of the dam above the foundation stands 85 feet (25.9 m) tall, making it the only dam in the world that stands more underground than above ground. The dam's primary functions are to create a reservoir, and to generate hydroelectric power. The reservoir behind the dam is called Lake Havasu and can store 647,000 acre⋅ft (798,000,000 m3; 2.11×1011 US gal; 1.76×1011 imp gal). The dam straddles the Arizona-California state border at the narrows the river passes through between the Whipple Mountains in San Bernardino County, California and the Buckskin Mountains in La Paz County, Arizona.
After 1900, California continued to grow rapidly and soon became an agricultural and industrial power. The economy was widely based on specialty agriculture, oil, tourism, shipping, film, and after 1940 advanced technology such as aerospace and electronics industries – along with a significant military presence. The films and stars of Hollywood helped make the state the "center" of worldwide attention. California became an American cultural phenomenon; the idea of the "California Dream" as a portion of the larger American Dream of finding a better life drew 35 million new residents from the start to the end of the 20th century (1900–2010). Silicon Valley became the world's center for computer innovation.
Castaic Dam is an embankment dam in northwestern Los Angeles County, California, in the unincorporated area of Castaic. Although located on Castaic Creek, a major tributary of the Santa Clara River, Castaic Creek provides little of its water. The lake is the terminus of the West Branch of the California Aqueduct, part of the State Water Project. The dam was built by the California Department of Water Resources and construction was completed in 1973. The lake has a capacity of 325,000 acre-feet (401,000,000 m3) and stores drinking water for the western portion of the Greater Los Angeles Area.
Lake Mathews is a large reservoir in Riverside County, California, located in the Cajalco Canyon in the foothills of the Temescal Mountains. It is the western terminus for the Colorado River Aqueduct that provides much of the water used by the cities and water districts of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (MWD). The reservoir is fenced and closed to all public access. The lake is near the Riverside community of Lake Hills, and is skirted by Cajalco Road on the south, El Sobrante Road on the north and east, and La Sierra Avenue on the west. La Sierra Avenue traverses the top of the west dike.
San Luis Dam, also known as B.F. Sisk Dam, is a major earth-filled dam in Merced County, California, which forms San Luis Reservoir, the largest off-stream reservoir in the United States. The dam and reservoir are located in the Diablo Range to the east of Pacheco Pass and about 10 miles (16 km) west of Los Banos. San Luis Dam, a jointly-owned state and federal facility, stores more than 2 million acre feet (2.5 km3) of water for the California State Water Project and the federal Central Valley Project. Although the dam is located in the valley of San Luis Creek, the majority of its water comes from man-made aqueducts which are supplied from other rivers in Northern California.
The California State Water Project, commonly known as the SWP, is a state water management project in the U.S. state of California under the supervision of the California Department of Water Resources. The SWP is one of the largest public water and power utilities in the world, providing drinking water for more than 27 million people and generating an average of 6,500 GWh of hydroelectricity annually. However, as it is the largest single consumer of power in the state itself, it has a net usage of 5,100 GWh.
Skinner Reservoir, also known as Lake Skinner, is a reservoir in western Riverside County, California, located at the foot of Bachelor Mountain in the Auld Valley, approximately 10 miles (16 km) northeast of Temecula. It was created in 1973 by the construction of the Skinner Clearwell Dam on Tucalota Creek, and currently has a capacity of 44,200 acre-feet (54,500,000 m3). Located north of Rancho California Road near the Temecula Valley Wine Country, The address of the reservoir is: 37701 Warren Road, Temecula, CA 92592.
The Eastern Municipal Water District of Southern California is a regional water district formed in 1950 to secure additional water for a largely rural area of western Riverside County. In addition to water service, responsibilities include sewage collection, water desalination and water recycling.
The Central Utah Project is a United States federal water project that was authorized for construction under the Colorado River Storage Project Act of April 11, 1956, as a participating project. In general, the Central Utah Project develops a portion of Utah's share of the yield of the Colorado River, as set out in the Colorado River Compact of 1922.
Interbasin transfer or transbasin diversion are terms used to describe man-made conveyance schemes which move water from one river basin where it is available, to another basin where water is less available or could be utilized better for human development. The purpose of such water resource engineering schemes can be to alleviate water shortages in the receiving basin, to generate electricity, or both. Rarely, as in the case of the Glory River which diverted water from the Tigris to Euphrates River in modern Iraq, interbasin transfers have been undertaken for political purposes. While ancient water supply examples exist, the first modern developments were undertaken in the 19th century in Australia, India and the United States, feeding large cities such as Denver and Los Angeles. Since the 20th century many more similar projects have followed in other countries, including Israel and China, and contributions to the Green Revolution in India and hydropower development in Canada.
California's interconnected water system serves almost 40 million people and irrigates over 5,680,000 acres (2,300,000 ha) of farmland. As the world's largest, most productive, and potentially most controversial water system, it manages over 40 million acre-feet (49 km3) of water per year. Use of available water averages 50% environmental, 40% agricultural and 10% urban, though this varies considerably by region and between wet and dry years. In wet years, "environmental" water averages 61%, while in dry years it averages 41%, and can be even lower in critically dry years.
The San Diego Aqueduct is a system of four aqueducts in the U.S. state of California, supplying about 70 percent of the water supply for the city of San Diego. The system comprises the First and Second San Diego Aqueducts, carrying water from the Colorado River west to reservoirs on the outskirts of San Diego. The 70-mile (110 km) First Aqueduct consists of pipelines 1 and 2, which run from the Colorado River Aqueduct near San Jacinto, California, to San Vicente Reservoir, approximately 15 miles (24 km) northeast of the city. Pipelines 3 and 4 make up the 94-mile (151 km) Second Aqueduct. Together, these four pipelines have a capacity of 826 cubic feet per second (23.4 m3/s). The smaller, 12.5-mile (20.1 km) Fallbrook-Ocean Branch branches from the First Aqueduct into Murray Reservoir. The La Mesa-Sweetwater Branch originates from the First Aqueduct, flowing into Sweetwater Reservoir.
The Mokelumne Aqueduct is a 95-mile (153 km) water conveyance system in central California, United States. The aqueduct is supplied by the Mokelumne River and provides water to 35 municipalities in the East Bay in the San Francisco Bay Area. The aqueduct and the associated dams, pipelines, treatment plants and hydroelectric system are owned and operated by the East Bay Municipal Utility District (EBMUD) and provide over 90 percent of the water used by the agency.
The San Diego County Water Authority (SDCWA) is a wholesale supplier of water to the roughly western third of San Diego County, California. The Water Authority was formed in 1944 by the California State Legislature. SDCWA serves 24 member agencies with 36 Board of Director members. In addition to local water sources, water is imported from the Colorado River and the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta through the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. SDCWA is the sole recipient of fresh water produced by the Claude "Bud" Lewis Carlsbad Desalination Plant.
The San Jacinto tunnel is considered the key link in Colorado River Aqueduct system. The 13 mi (21 km) long, 16 ft diameter tunnel runs beneath the San Jacinto Mountains between Cabazon, California and Gilman Hot Springs in Riverside County, California.
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