LOCAL VIEW; WILL ANGELINOS HAVE WATER ON THEIR BRAINS? DWP MAPS OUT LONG-TERM PLAN THAT NO ONE SEEMS TO CARE ABOUT.

Byline: Richard Nemec

It is no small irony that in this arid part of the world, Los Angeles citizens seem to take water for granted. Maybe it is our now over-written- about laidbackness and the sun-worshipping culture that our movie business has helped promote. Nevertheless, some of our city officials want this blase attitude to change.

The top executive overseeing the water part of the city of Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, Gerald Gewe, spoke to an almost empty room Dec. 14 when he conducted a public hearing on the city's five-year water plan that is required by an obscure 1983 state law that everyone other than Gewe and his lieutenants have long ago forgotten. The lack of citizen interest was glaring and sad.

Of course, some people might suggest that DWP waited until the middle of the 20th Century's last holiday shopping frenzy and set the meeting for 5 p.m. on a Tuesday at its headquarters in downtown L.A. Not an easy time or place for residents scattered around this 400-square-mile metropolitan area to attend. (One could ask who's convenience was being served in setting this schedule.)

Gewe, a big, straight-talking engineer, looked out at me and less than a dozen others (most of whom were DWP employees) and decided that once again L.A. showed it takes its water for granted, despite the fact that there are only enough local supplies to sustain two of every ten residents. It is too bad nobody showed, because the DWP had a well-organized computer-generated slide presentation, some delicious cookies and brownies, and generally a ``good news'' story to tell.

I was there for several reasons: (a) I was in the neighborhood, (b) water has been eclipsed by all the talk about electricity competition in recent years, and (c) the water portion of my DWP bill has jumped faster than Yahoo stock. (The culprit is supposedly one running toilet, now fixed, as ascertained by one of DWP's aqua experts who came to my home and assessed the situation in person.)

For the next 20 years at least, assuming we don't have 20 more consecutive dry years like 1999, L.A. has a ``sustainable future in terms of water supply,'' Gewe says. ``We hope to support the growth of this city without having to bring in new sources of water.''

DWP, however, will have to spend approximately $4 billion to $6 billion to maintain and update the city's vast water infrastructure, most of which dates back to the 1920s and '30s.

The most astounding fact that Gewe and his colleagues repeated several times is that L.A. somehow is using essentially the same amounts of water overall now as it did in the 1970s. So, essentially, through conservation and other measures we have supported a 30-percent increase in the population over the past quarter of the century. DWP attributes most of the success to more comprehensive conservation programs since 1990. DWP supplies water to about a million more people today than it did in the early 1970s.

A draft of the Urban Water Management Plan was passed out, but it will not be finished until the spring when DWP promises to hold another public comment session - probably in the San Fernando Valley - and, I hope, at a more convenient time and place and with a lot more promotion and public notice. That plan outlines steps for water conservation and recycling, along with an outline of alternative supplemental water supplies, such as transfers/groundwater storage, desalination and reused stormwater.

For those hundreds of thousands of L.A. denizens who were unable to squeeze into DWP's 15th-Floor headquarters board room that seats only about 100 comfortably, DWP says it has been religiously promoting low-flow showerheads, giving away ultra-low-flow toilets and helping establish rebates on new super-efficient washing machines to better manage water use. The giveaways apparently have been working, and over half of the city's geographical area has been blanketed with some 850,000 low-flow toilets.

I must say, however, that given my own personal experience of paying extra for wasting toilet water, the proposed five-year DWP water plan falls short of telling us much about what the giant city utility is spending for its water operations and, more important, what on average it is costing residents for water, compared to the last five-year plan. (A recent financial report DWP sent me says for the 12 months ended June 30, water revenues were $443 million, and the delivery system was worth $2.1 billion.)

In the last four years, DWP has been able to make greater use of more inexpensive local sources of water, thanks mostly to higher-than-normal snowpacks in the eastern Sierra Nevada. This has allowed the city to rely less heavily on more expensive supplies from the huge wholesaler, the Metropolitan Water District, but this happy situation cannot be expected to last forever.

MWD is the provider of water from two large sources - the state water project and the Colorado River Aqueduct, for which negotiations are ongoing on the politically charged issue of developing a ``California Plan'' that would ultimately reduce the state's reliance on Colorado River supplies. DWP's draft five-year report notes that there are many ``contentious issues'' still to be resolved, and that MWD and DWP areworking hard to keep as much Colorado River water as possible flowing to our urban shores.

The relatively short, sparsely attended meeting eventually made me thirsty, so I stepped outside, got a drink and made my way home. I guess there is no cause to panic, but water certainly should be taken a little bit more seriously. Next time around, DWP needs to draw a larger audience, maybe offer a month's free water or some Internet-based coupons for those brave enough to attend.