20 YEARS OF DROUGHT? L.A. FACES HIGHER WATER RATES, CONSERVATION MEASURES.

Byline: Robert Monroe Staff Writer

With a new forecast for 20 years of drought across the region, Los Angeles faces the prospect of higher water rates or strict conservation measures, officials said Monday.

As the region endures the season's first heat wave, Southern California's largest water supplier has called a meeting today - the first of its kind in 11 years - to discuss strategy and a prediction that Los Angeles could get 20 percent less rain than average for the next 20 years.

This unnerving forecast comes as the Metropolitan Water District begins to renegotiate its water contracts with water agencies in Southern California, a plan that could raise Los Angeles water rates.

MWD officials said the new contracts are necessary in the face of predicted drought and global warming, with the recent winter the warmest in U.S. history.

``If we develop greater storage capabilities in the region, we can reduce the impact,'' said Dan Ortega, who is coordinating today's strategic planning session. ``If we don't plan for storage of water, if we don't make the most of technology to conserve water, then it could be pretty drastic.''

A 20-year dry spell - called a Pacific decadal oscillation - would leave Los Angeles with three fewer inches than its normal 15 inches of rainfall, said Bill Patzert, a researcher with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena who will be testifying today with three other scientists.

The 1999-2000 rain season, which ends in six weeks, will probably end up just below 12 inches. ``That looks like previews of coming attractions potentially for the next decade or two,'' Patzert said.

A local drought would begin to deplete groundwater and force homeowners to use more water year-round on landscaping and gardens.

``When there's less rain, people use more water,'' Patzert said.

``The negative phase of the Pacific decadal oscillation means a 30 percent drop in rainfall. It'll definitely have big impact on the water table and on agriculture. There are still a lot of districts pumping water out of the water table,'' he said.

The extra use of water in hot, dry times could be balanced out by increased precipitation in the Sierras, from which Southern California draws much of its water, he said.

``The general tendency will be to keep storms farther north,'' he said.

Currently, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power gets about 65 percent of its water from the Owens Valley in the Sierras north of Los Angeles, about 20 percent from the MWD and the rest from aquifers, according to DWP waterworks engineer Fred Barker. But when it's drier in the Owens Valley, the city relies more on the much more expensive MWD water, driving up costs for the average household.

``The mechanism will shift to a higher price in dry years,'' said Jerry Gewe, assistant general manager of the DWP's water division.

The new contract would increase that fluctuation, so that in dry years in the Sierras, the price would go up more than it does under the current contract - but in wet years it would go down much more than usual. In the long run, however, Gewe said he hopes it evens out for ratepayers.

The new contract, which has not been approved yet, is a result of pressures from San Diego, the MWD's largest customer, which is seeking to reduce its costs by forcing other members to commit to buying minimum amounts of water even in wet years.

Beyond the new contract, Los Angeles city officials think effects of a drought would be minimal as long as it is confined to Southern California. In 1991, the last year of the region's most recent drought, the average residential user in Los Angeles paid about $6 extra a month for water.

Fred Barker, a water works engineer with the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, said the last drought also reached the Sierra Nevada, the city's primary source of water. The drought forced it to buy as much as two-thirds of its water from the MWD, which gets most of its water from the Colorado River.

``If it's only Southern California, we'll have plenty of water from where we always get our water,'' he said.

Patzert's research takes advantage of technology not available during the last dry phase, but his prediction also relies on simple rain measurements Los Angeles has taken annually since 1878. Annual rainfall totals between 1945 and 1975 were markedly lower on average than those from 1976 to 1998, when a wet weather cycle influenced by the Pacific Ocean ended.

The technology behind JPL forecasts includes satellite measurements of sea surface levels that can signal the presence of relatively brief El Nino and La Nina patterns. The newly available technology has enhanced climate prediction but on its heels comes doubt about those predictions. Dissenters say the technology needs to exist long enough to record several cycles before it gains full credence.

Another speaker today, Peter Gleick, believes the region - with or without the dry phase - is headed for significant long-term warming trends because of an increasingly documented shift in planetary climate.

``There's no doubt that California will be significantly affected by climate change,'' said Gleick, director of the Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment and Security in Oakland.

Today's workshop will mark the MWD's first return in 11 years to topics such as climate forecasting and global warming, which in 1989 was less the household expression it is now and more a concept poorly grasped outside scientific circles, Ortega said.

Since then, scientists have found that the average temperature of the planet has risen a full degree in the last century. More locally, snow levels in the Sierra Nevada have risen nearly 1,000 feet in the last 30 years, Gleick said.

In almost the same time period, Southern California's population has doubled.

``The ability is becoming more exact which is why our board wants to talk to those scientists,'' said Ortega, who believes the agency is a step ahead of its counterparts in considering the opinions of climate forecasters. ``If we're going to survive predictions of growth and a drier climate, we're going to have to plan more.''

Another speaker, Jeanine Jones, drought response manager of the state Department of Water Resources, said she believes the effect of a drought is unclear.

``People are just starting to get a handle on it and understand it but it is extremely hard to translate what the grand scale things might mean as far as rain on the ground,'' Jones said.

``We really don't have a way of going from the kind of prediction that Bill is making to a water supply forecast. It's apples and oranges.''

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Chart: (1 -- 2) Los Angeles Civic Center average annual rainfall