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Duane Georgeson Metropolitan Water District of Southern California Thank you very much John. I'm going to switch immediately to some slides. The Metropolitan Water District of southern California lest you get carried away that something like this might be the solution to your problems in the Denver area or in Colorado -- our law has been on the books for 66 years and we're still the first and only district in California that has taken advantage of that law. A quick review of California: most of our water occurs in the form of rain and snow in the north and also along the eastern Sierra, and most of the demand is along the coast, San Francisco to southern California, and also the Great Central Valley of California. The Metropolitan Water District is an area of about 5200 square miles. Our district was organized under the State Legislature in 1928. In 1930, we signed a contract with the Secretary of Interior to get Colorado River water. By 1941, we took first delivery. In 1960 we passed a bond issue in California to build the State Water Project. Metropolitan signed a contract with the State of California to take half of the water from the State Water Project and we took first delivery in 1972. What were the circumstances when MWD was formed? Back in 1931, the leadership actually came from the city of Los Angeles and twelve other relatively small cities in Orange County. Los Angeles comprised about 85 percent of the population and assessed valuation. Over the intervening 40 years, '31 to '71, we annexed a lot of additional territory, one additional city, and twelve municipal water districts down in Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, and throughout San Diego County. San Diego County came in as the San Diego county water authority. There are 27 member agencies. Los Angeles County with the city of Los Angeles' 3.5 million population comprises a little over 20 percent of the assessed valuation and population. San Diego has about 15 percent, and small cities like Beverly Hills, Santa Monica and San Fernando have less than one percent of the population and assessed valuation. We have a very large board of directors and that's because every one of our 27 member agencies is allowed at least one representative, and then depending on assessed valuation, you get additional members, up to a maximum at the present time of eight for the City of Los Angeles, six for the San Diego Water Authority. Voting is based on assessed valuation, which turns out to be a pretty good approximation of population within the member agencies. Our board looks a little like the United Nations General Assembly. One of the downsides of this kind of a district is the necessity of finding a big enough board room to accommodate the representatives! The member agencies appoint their members to our board, although perhaps in half of the cases they are elected officials either within their water district or occasionally within their city. The mayor of Santa Anna is on our Board. An ex-mayor of Santa Monica is on our board. But it is an appointed Board of 51 members. 40