surplus water

With the increased allocation, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California will be able to meet the region’s water demands this year and will have surplus water to put into storage, said Adel Hagekhalil, the MWD’s general manager.

Cadiz‘s proposal to the giant Metropolitan Water District in 1997 “had a charming 25-words-or-less simplicity,” I wrote in 2006: The MWD would store its surplus water beneath Cadiz’s acreage in wet years and retrieve it during droughts, paying Cadiz a fee at both ends.”

Increased flow would also have come at a cost to the water agency, which makes tens of millions of dollars a year selling hydroelectric power and surplus water, he said.

Some surplus water will be poured across fallowed farm fields so it can soak into the ground and recharge sinking aquifers.

Nine years out of 10, they’ll receive payment from a conservation group in exchange for leaving the surplus water in the river.