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A water agency for the 21st century: Can “Mother Met” become Met 2.0?

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on November 21, 2009 at 7:44 am

Metropolitan SealFrom Barry Nelson at the NRDC Switchboard blog:

“To the non-water wonk, a long-range planning process within the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (known as Met) might appear as exciting as drying paint. But for those of us within the water community, it has the potential to offer high drama.

This process is confronting a question that has enormous implications for the future of California’s water: How does a water agency that was built upon last century’s tools–dams, canals, and other forms of concrete–adapt to the age of water conservation and efficiency?

How Met answers this question will shape its future and likely influence other water agencies around the state and the country.

You see, Met is the single largest urban water agency in the United States. It is also the juggernaut behind some of the most ambitious water projects of the 20th century, from tapping the Colorado River to hauling Delta water down the Central Valley and lifting it 2,000 feet over the Tehachapi Mountains. … “

Read more of Barry Nelson’s post by clicking here.

November 21, 2009 · Filed Under Metropolitan Water District

Comments

One Response to “A water agency for the 21st century: Can “Mother Met” become Met 2.0?”

  1. Wayne Lusvardi on November 21st, 2009 10:30 am

    I can’t believe that a “Senior Policy Analyst” with the National Resources Defense Council could write such a naive and romantic piece about some sort of restructuring of MWD. To cut to the quick, what would be the tradeoffs for MWD1 morphing to MWD2? Conservation perhaps works on the macro level because new dams and reservoirs don’t have to be built; but at the micro level conservation just depletes local aquifers resulting in more dependence on imported water supplies. Moreover, new Smart Growth laws like AB 375 divert population growth to urban coastal cities where there is a dearth of indigenous water resources and away from inland exurbs where groundwater resources are greater. Neither Barry Nelson’s MWD1 nor his MWD2 models would change this. Moreover, Nelson seems totally ignorant of such complicated issues as “wheeling fees,” the public perception problems of mixing treated waste water with imported water supplies in MWD pipeline system, etc. In short, Nelson is all wet.

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