Morongo Basin residents are not included in an order to cut water use for about 6 million people. The Metropolitan Water District (MWD) of Southern California declared a water shortage emergency and required the cities and water agencies it supplies to implement the cutback June 1 or face hefty fines. The MWD uses water from the Colorado River and the State Water Project to supply 26 public water agencies that provide water to 19 million people, or 40% of the state’s population. The MWD restrictions apply to areas of Los Angeles, Ventura and San Bernardino counties that rely mostly on state water, Mainly urban areas are impacted. Record dry conditions have strained the system, lowering reservoir levels, and the State Water Project, which gets its water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, has estimated it will only be able to deliver about 5% of its usual allocation this year, that will affect the Hi-Desert and Joshua Basin water districts which get state project water from the Morongo Basin Pipeline. California Gov. Gavin Newsom has asked people to voluntarily reduce their water consumption by 15%, but so far residents have been slow to meet that goal. California’s current standard for residential indoor water use is 55 gallons per person per day. The rule doesn’t apply to individuals, the state requires local water agencies to meet that standard across all of their customers.
