Metropolitan Water District Reports Record Level Water Stored, Lowest Water Revenue in Decades

Metropolitan Water District representative Cynthia Kurtz reported that the agency has 3.4 million acre-feet of water in storage, enough to meet the future demand of its customers regardless of the weather. 

The MWD provides Pasadena with about 60% of its water supply.

At Tuesday’s  Municipal Services Committee meeting, Kurtz said this is the most storage MWD has ever had since 1979.

“It was a wet year and when it’s a wet year, demands are down.” 

“That’s the most storage Met has ever had. It puts us in a very good place for looking at future droughts and it puts us in a good place with our negotiations with the Colorado River which are going to cause us to have to reduce water from that imported source.”

However, because the demands are low, Kurtz said MWD revenues are also down. “This was the lowest water sale since the 40s.”

She said MWD will probably pull out around $310 million out of its reserves.

“We keep a very big reserve just because it’s either water or money. You can’t have both at the same time. Right now, we have water.”

Kurtz said the amount of money that MWD will take from the reserve fund could be higher depending on the weather. 

The Board has already begun discussing how to take other steps to cut costs and generate new revenues in order to be better positioned in the event there are multiple years of low sales as per Kurtz. 

“We’ll see whether at the end of next year we have water and money,” Kurtz said.