CALIFORNIA TO BE HIT WITH ENERGY SHORTAGES AND AS WELL AS WATER SHORTAGES –AS THE EXTREME DROUGHT CONTINUES THE LAST TWO YEARS AND EXTENDING FOR A DECADE IN THE COLORADO BASIN, MAKING LAKE MEADE AND LAKE POWELL NOW TO BE ONLY HALF FULL

Water managers Monday urged Californians to step up their conservation efforts, warning that many parts of the state could face water shortages next year if this winter proves to be another dry one.

“Use these dry conditions as a wake-up call,” said Mark Cowin, director of the state Department of Water Resources.

Officials are not ready to declare a statewide drought. And managers of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, the region’s wholesaler of imported water, said they have sufficient supplies in regional storage to avoid mandatory cutbacks for at least another year.

But two dry years in a row have pushed water levels in the state’s biggest reservoirs to below normal. Lake Shasta is at 66% of the average for this time of year and Lake Oroville is at 73% of average.

More than a decade of severe drought in the Colorado River basin — the source of about a quarter of urban Southern California’s supplies — has left both Lake Powell and Lake Mead less than half full. The last two years on the Colorado have been among the driest on record in about a century of measurements.

http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-water-conserve-20131014,0,6674448.story