How the Water Shortage Impacts Topanga

The Wildlife Crossing is finally happening!
Published May 2, 2022, at 5:00 p.m.

Below is a letter from Scott Houston, Division IV Director of the West Basin Water District, which serves the Topanga community.  

"This week the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (MWD) unanimously approved an action impacting about 6 million people when it declared a water shortage emergency and implemented its first-ever water restrictions to portions of our region that rely on water from the State Water Project that carries water from Northern California.

These measures are difficult and the news can be confusing because the newly imposed restrictions apply only to certain geographic areas and not the entire region due to the multiple water supply sources we rely upon.

At this time, communities within the West Basin service area are not affected by these mandatory water restrictions since we receive 100% of our imported water from the Colorado River Aqueduct. As such, the water shortage declaration does not apply to West Basin or its customer retail agencies. You'll notice the areas of West Basin in the above map are not shaded in red.

That said, West Basin took early action last year asking our residents and businesses to voluntarily conserve by 15% in keeping with Governor Newsom’s statewide request, and we have increased our agency’s water conservation messaging and community education and outreach programs.

While our district and others are not directly impacted by these water restrictions from MWD, I believe it is imperative West Basin looks at additional ways to ensure we do our part to save water which helps alleviate our already strained Colorado River supplies. West Basin is fortunate to have developed a diverse water supply portfolio that helps insulate our communities from some of the challenges of our imported water systems, but we can and are doing more and we are all in this together.

On that note, the article below appeared in Friday’s Los Angeles Times that details differences of opinion from water experts on how our agencies should respond at this time:

Why some SoCal neighborhoods face dire water cuts while others escape restrictions