The rain finally came to California this week, and not a moment too soon. Last year was the state’s driest year in a century. Over the past two weeks, the percentage of California territory in an ‘exceptional drought” – the drought monitor’s highest rating – has expanded from 15 to 26, while over 90 percent of the state remains in ‘severe drought.”

On Jan. 31, 2013, the State Water Project (SWP), the network of pumps and aqueducts that supplies water to 25 million people from Napa to Coachella, issued a historic 0 percent allocation. Translation: Of the 4 million acre-feet of water requested by its constituent water districts, the SWP, for the first time in its 55-year history, can promise nothing.

But what does that mean for the SWP’s largest contractor, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California – which includes Los Angeles and San Diego and requests over 1.9 million acre-feet of water? Are they still taking showers in Hollywood?

Even as California’s very dry rainy season comes to a close, the biggest sacrifice L.A. residents are making is to water their lawns every other day. Folsom Lake looks like Mars, the Sierra snowpack is at 25 percent of normal, and the […]