THE FUTURE

For the SWP and its contractors, water supply reliability and water quality are among the more critical issues that will determine the future of their service areas. Urban users foresee growing demands from increasing populations. Agricultural users worry about rising water costs and depleting groundwater basins. Both know existing water supplies will be shared with increasing environmental needs; and both know undependable supplies mean adverse consequences and uncertain prospects for economic growth.
The contracts the SWP contractors initially signed were to pay for a project that would ultimately deliver about 4 million acre-feet. However deliveries from existing SWP facilities average less than 3 million acre-feet annually, because facilities originally planned were not constructed and stricter Delta regulations limit water exports.

At a water conference in San Diego, DWR Chief Deputy Director Steve Macaulay said that solutions to California’s water problems would not be forthcoming from State or federal government. Each region would have to find its own answers because each has its own unique needs and resources. Finding such solutions could determine how well each SWP contractor will cope with future demands for its communities, with the prospects of sometimes reduced Project water deliveries.

The contractors began building a groundwork for their future with the Monterey Amendments (see page __, in the PRESENT section), sweeping contract changes that allowed them more flexibility in water transfers and distribution, and more participation in the Project’s operations. The changes will help each contractor’s service area to fashion water management strategies, specific to its needs, that will leave it less dependent on what the SWP can supply each year.

The following sections look at what strategies SWP contractors are using to secure their own future water supplies and how decisions yet to be made will impact the future of the Project’s capability to deliver contracted entitlements.

Water Management Strategies
East Branch Extension
SWRCB Bay-Delta Hearings
FERC Relicensing of Oroville Facilities
CALFED and the Record of Decision
South Delta Program
 Integrated Storage Investigations