Who decides when mandatory conservation is needed to combat a drought?
If MWD doesn’t have enough water supplies available from imported supplies, storage or transfers to meet current-year demands for its member agencies – including the Water Authority – MWD will notify the member agencies that it will reduce their water deliveries. During such a shortage, the Water Authority will try to augment supplies on its own. If such supplies are unavailable or cost-prohibitive, the Water Authority’s Drought Management Plan (See Question 15 below) provides a formula for allocating reduced amounts of water to each of its 24 member agencies. The decision to declare specific mandatory conservation measures would be made by local retail water agencies based upon each agency’s specific characteristics, including local weather conditions, locally generated and stored water supplies, and other factors.
