Metropolitan Water District CEO Calls for Increased Water Conservation Despite Recent Rains

The recent rains which drenched Southern California over the last several months were a very good thing, said Adel Hagekhalil, the General Manager and Chief Executive Officer of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, as he addressed the Pasadena City Council Monday, but he added, “We can’t be victims to hydrology. We can’t be victims of climate change. What we need to do is prepare for it.”

Hagekhalil appeared before the Council at his own request to update them on the constant need for more water conservation, while praising the City’s efforts so far.

Pasadena receives about 60% of its water from the MWD, Hagekhalil emphasized, however, “It’s not about importing water or bringing water here. We have to create our own water. We have to store water when we have it, and we have to build a system to capture water.”

Regional water wholesaler MWD is a voluntary cooperative of 26 member agencies. These agencies buy either all or part of their water from the MWD. The MWD supplies water to 19 million people across six counties in Southern California. A Board of Directors consisting of 38 members governs the MWD. Each member agency of the Metropolitan has at least one representative on the Board.

“When it comes to water, we need to collaborate,” Hagekhalil added.

“Our job today is to build the future for a hundred years, but it’s not going to be the same tools that we used in the past,” he said. “We have to build a system to recycle every drop. And when we have rain like we had over the last two years, how can we move it in the system and store the water?”

Hagekhalil noted that MWD is at record storage with 3.4 million acre-feet of storage across its service area.

“That’s a great accomplishment,” he said. “We’re able to capture as much water as we can, but it’s not enough.”

Toward that end, Hagekhalil noted that the MWD recently received $43 million from the state of California to help investing in conservation.

Hagekhalil also noted that, “The new thinking at MWD is, as we get more rain, how we can capture and move the rain and move the surplus into our area. Our goal is to say we have our own basins. Can we replenish the basins, put water in so we can, when we need it, we can pull it out?”

Noting the ongoing effects of climate change, Hagekhalil said that the region will see hotter and drier days but also very wet months. “And our job is how we adapt to it, how we adjust to it.”

He also noted that the MWD is developing a process to engage member communities in water exchanges throughout the region.

Hagekhalil also told the Council that Nevada and Arizona are partnering with the MWD on a recycled water project being built in Carson. This project will be “the largest recycled water project in the country, with 150 million gallons a day, enough for 3 million people that we’re going to recycle our wastewater and put it in the ground for reuse.”

Hagekhalil has also created an Office of Resiliency, Sustainability and Innovation to centralize new projects, along with establishing a new grant office.

The MWD received more than $200 million in grants, he said.

“Taxpayers do not have to pay for this,” he said. “And by the spring, I’m hoping to bring in half a billion dollars in federal money to help us here.”

Once again stressing the recent rains and the increased cooperation among agencies, Hagekhalil said the MWD is “buying time.”

As Hagekhalil explained, the snowpack in the Sierras is 110%, the snowpack in the Colorado River is “not bad,” and the MWD has added over 30 feet of water to Lake Mead.

But MWD is “overusing the Colorado River,” he said, and “we need to find ways to manage that. We’re committed to that.”

Finally, said Hagekhalil, “What we’re looking at is a new business model, a business model of how we are going to pay for this, and developing the efficiencies and the infrastructure, to build resiliency.”