supplies

Water flows with gravity in the aqueduct, making the supplies more economical than the city’s other imported sources, which require energy-intensive pumping.

During the last five years, Los Angeles has imported nearly 90% of the city’s water, drawing on supplies from the Colorado River and the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta as well as the Eastern Sierra.

DWP has also been investing in developing more local supplies to reduce reliance on imported water and prepare for worsening droughts compounded by climate change.

According to the federal government, that additional space will increase supplies for about 2 million people, more than 1 million acres of farmland, and wetlands in the Central Valley that provide critical habitat for birds and other wildlife.

San Luis Reservoir is part of California’s two main water-delivery systems — the State Water Project and the federally managed Central Valley Project — and its more than 2 million acre-feet of storage space is divided between the two systems, providing an important reserve of supplies south of the Delta.