DROUGHT MATH-Construction projects going through the city permit process are required to cite how much water demand they will impose on the city’s water supply and whether the city has surplus water supplies to accommodate the project.
This information is provided in the EIR (Environmental Impact Report) which is part of the permit package for the project. The EIR’s have a section on ‘Utilities’ stating where this surplus water will come from. As evidence of sufficient surplus water, the EIR’s refer you to the city’s current UWMP as evidence. The UWMP also describes how it will meet demand should there be a shortages of city owned water. When water shortages occur the city’s water plans state that they have access to MWD supplies that will meet the city’s level of demand.
The chart below shows us that despite the UWMP’s guarantee that the MWD will be able to provide sufficient water supply projects in dry years, the DWP has not been able to meet that guarantee since MWD supplies have come up short of the projections every year since 1990.
The deficit the city finds itself in is a result of this gap. Because this has been allowed to occur for twenty five years and never corrected in each subsequent UWMP, we have to assume that these statements in the UWMP assuring that MWD will meet demand are mainly intended to facilitate approvals and nothing more. As such, it is a planned deficit.
(David Coffin is a writer and an occasional contributor to CityWatch. He is an education activist and has served on the Neighborhood Council of Westchester-Playa del Rey. Read more of Coffin’s views and more on California’s drought at http://droughtmath.com/)
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CityWatch
Vol 13 Issue 39
Pub: May 12, 2015
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