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Jeffrey Kightlinger.
A Remarkable Achievement: Metropolitan’s Jeffrey Kightlinger on the DCP
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Kris Polly: Would you please explain the significance of the DCP from Metropolitan’s point of view? Jeffrey Kightlinger: We think it’s one of the more significant agreements we’ve made on the river. The last 20 years have seen a lot of progress with the basin states working together in a collaborative and cooperative manner. Of course, nothing sharpens people’s attention like a severe drought. Everyone knows we’ve been in a severe drought on the Colorado River, and we are beginning to understand that climate change and other demands are just exacerbating the effects of this long-term drought. We are perhaps not in crisis mode today, but we are close to it—
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too close for comfort. Things have to be done and tough decisions have to be made. We started on this path in 2007 with the first shortage sharing guidelines on the river. It became pretty clear after 10 years that they simply weren’t robust enough to protect us from reaching crisis mode. I think it’s quite remarkable that the seven states and Mexico were able to get together and agree on voluntary restrictions. These were not imposed—the states agreed to them. They set aside water law, water rights, and priority systems, and thought about what they needed to do to protect the system. I think it’s a significant and remarkable achievement and a real demonstration of what we’re going to need to do in the future. Kris Polly: With the passage of the DCP as a law and its signing by the states, what are the next steps? Jeffrey Kightlinger: The agreements are already working as intended. One of the goals of the DCP was to encourage people to start storing water early, and a lot of that is taking place. We are fortunate enough to have good hydrology in the Colorado River basin this year, and you’re seeing people taking aggressive efforts to use the new agreements in the manner in which they were intended. Southern Nevada is storing water. The Central Arizona Project is storing water. Metropolitan is going to put probably close to 400,000 acre-feet of water into Lake Mead this year. By the end of 2019, we expect Metropolitan to have a million acre-feet in Lake Mead,
PHOTO COURTESY OF METROPOLITAN WATER DISTRICT OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA.
he Metropolitan Water District of Southern California is a state-established cooperative of 26 member agencies, including cities and public water agencies, that serve about 19 million people across 5,200 square miles stretching from Oxnard to San Diego. One of Metropolitan’s major sources of water is the Colorado River, water from which is conveyed to the Los Angeles area via a 242-mile aqueduct built by Metropolitan. As such, Metropolitan has a crucial interest in the future of the Colorado River, and it played a part in negotiating the recently executed drought contingency plan (DCP). In this interview, Jeffrey Kightlinger of Metropolitan speaks with Municipal Water Leader Editor-in-Chief Kris Polly about the implementation of the newly enacted DCP legislation and about what agreements will be necessary in future years.