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The original one is the Los Angeles River which visibly runs a little while during the rainy season, but surprisingly enough, it is still sufficient to supply the old Spanish Grant ithat dates back to 1769 which has a present population of 400, 000. Lo~ Angeles is beginning to take Colorado River Water now. Of courSe I ~m not talking about Los Angeles alone. There are sixty-six incorporated, cities in the Metropolitan Water District which extends from Pasadena and Santa Monica on the north to. the Mexican boundary on the south and includes five counties between the mountains and the Pacific Ocean. Altho~gh two cities depend on the Colorado River for 1000/. of their water s~pply, the bulk of the area uses it only as a supplement when the local so\lrces are not entirely sufficient. On the average our entire area requi:red 1/6 of its supply from the Colorado River during 1954. Our supplyifrom Lake Mead for the next year will probably be increased from 275,000 acre feet to 350,000 acre feet because of our increasing population. However, if this source should run short, we will increase our supply from pumping or another source. With our population constantly increasing, a slightly varied definition of drouth can produce a horrib~e story that affects us at some future time, a generation from now, and! repetition of a long sustained severe drouth would really call for an eyttirely different story here and a different conclusion. We don't consider ourselves in the clear too much on that. While we have the same power storage as other areas do, our Southern California Edison Company and the Los Angeles Water &< Fire Department are certainly wailing the reduction in their income due to less hydro power as they are having tp burn more of our precious petroleum and petroleum by-products tol make enough power for our area. Nevertheless, that is a financial aspect ~ather than any perspective water shortage as I started out by saying there would be no dust, and no water shortage in the Los Angeles area. In 1954 OUI diversions from the Colorado River totaled 275,000 acre feet which is only 4% of this drouth year's runpff of the Colorado River system, or 2% of the normal flow of the River. Since we are fortunate enough to be diverting below Lake Mead, ~ven if the runoff is comparable to the last two years, we would still not ~ve to disturb our water users with this drouth problem. The Water Supply System of Los Angeles has better protection for the Coastal Plain of 'Southern California than any area in the country. We have three entirely independent sources of supply. There has been considerable evidence of a somewhat reduced runoff in the Southwest. There is also evidenc;e of a warming up effect in the extreme North and Northwest and temp~ratures have gone up an average of three degrees. Although that doesn't] sound like much, it is enough to change the nature of our weather to briytg on milder winters and more drying up of our area to such an extent that we have to take into account in planning our water supply. - 24 -