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41
Chapter 7: Colorado River
Water
By the early 1970s, the population of the
Water Authority’s service area exceeded
1,250,000. As William Jennings recalled,
“That growth took place so rapidly, and was
really unexpected … that in the efforts to keep
up with the growth … everyone was just about
half a jump behind the demands for water.”
9
In 1973, a fourth pipeline, this one capable of
carrying as much water as the first three pipes
combined, was added to the Second San
Diego Aqueduct. It was extended to the city
of San Diego’s Alvarado Treatment Plant near
La Mesa in 1978. By 1980, the population
had grown to 1.8 million, and the Water
Authority now served 99 percent of the
county’s residents. A fifth pipeline, this one
even bigger than the fourth, was added to
the Second Aqueduct at a point north of
San Marcos in 1982. It brought the Water
Authority’s total pipeline capacity to about
1 million acre-feet per year, roughly 15 ti
mes
more than the capacity of the first pipeline
alone, which had been built only 35
years earlier.
10
REDUCING DEPENDENCE ON
THE COLORADO RIVER
In spite of the long and meticulous negotia-
tions for the Colorado River Compact, there
were still disputes to be settled. The first
involved differing interpretations by California
and Arizona over what constitutes surplus water
and the precise amount of Arizona’s allotment.
The Colorado River Compact had allotted 7.5
million acre-feet (MAF) to the lower basin states,
with Arizona receiving 2.8 MAF, California
receiving 4.4 MAF and Nevada receiving
300,000 acre-feet. Any amount of
water over
that was considered “surplus.”
In 1964, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that
California and Arizona must share the surplus
Colorado River water equally. However,
California could continue using more than its
share as long as Arizona did not need the sur-
plus water. When Arizona completed its Central
Arizona Project in 1985, it began to clai
m its
share of the surplus water. Thus, California had
to reduce its dependence on Arizona’s share of
the surplus water. That reduction would hit the
Metropolitan Water District
—
and hence, the
Water Authority
—
especially hard, because of
its low priority to receive Colorado River water.
Since the Water Authority was receiving about
20 percent of
Metropolitan’s deliveries, it antici-
pated reductions as well. Luckily, by the 1970s
there was a new source for i
mported water:
water from Northern California.
9 ORIGINAL WATER AUTHORITY MEMBERS (1944)
City of Chula Vista
City of Coronado
City of
Oceanside
City of San Diego
Fallbrook Public Utility
Lakeside Irrigation District
La Mesa, Lemon Grove & Spring Valley Irrig. Dist.
City of National
City
Ramona Irrigation District
Carlsbad Municipal
Water District
City of Del
Mar
City of Escondido
City of
Oceanside
City of Poway
City of San Diego
Fallbrook Public Utility District
Helix Water District
Lakeside Water District
National
City
Olivenhain Municipal
Water District
Otay Water District
Padre Dam Municipal
Water District
Pendleton Military Reservation
Rainbow Municipal
Water District
Ramona Municipal
Water District
Rincon del
Diablo Municipal
Water District
San Dieguito Water District
Santa Fe Irrigation District
South Bay Irrigation District
Vallecitos Water District
Valley Center Municipal
Water District
Vista Irrigation District
Yui
ma Municipal
Water District
24 CURRENT WATER AUTHORITY MEMBERS (2013)