PWP Will Ask City to Increase Water Restrictions, Predicts City Can’t Meet New Lower Allocation

Pasadena Water and Power plans to ask a city committee to consider tightening Pasadena’s water supply shortage rules from a Level 1 to a Level 2 plan in the face of an impending 15% water supply reduction imposed by the Metropolitan Water District.

PWP’s General Manager Phyllis E. Currie said in a Memorandum last week that the city will have to conserve more to avoid exceeding its allocation and incurring new surcharge penalties of up to $2,960 per acre foot of water — about four times the normal MWD rate.

“The Pasadena community has made progress towards conservation,” Currie said last week, but more water must be saved to be meet targets.

Currie said that although PWP plans to fully follow and implement the requirements of Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr.’s April 1 Executive Order implementing mandatory water reductions by 25 percent, she also said “no specific restrictions have [yet] been adopted.”

PWP’s request to raise the restrictions to a Level 2 plan will be made to the Municipal Services Committee at its upcoming April 28 meeting, Currie said.

“Recognizing the seriousness of the ongoing drought in California, after the hottest year on record in 2014 and the driest year ever recorded in 2013, PWP will discuss elevating the current Water Supply Shortage Plan from a Level 1 to Level 2 at the April 28, 2015 Municipal Services Committee Meeting,” Currie wrote in the memo.

The primary difference between the two levels is that the Level 2 plan limits watering during warm months (April through October) to two days per week instead of three days per week.

“PWP will continues to closely monitor its water consumption to ensure the Pasadena community continues to conserve water as we move into the hottest months of the year,” Currie wrote.