No More Boat Launches at Diamond Valley Lake: Drought Restrictions Being Implemented

By City News Service:

The region’s drought is draining the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California’s largest reservoir -- Diamond Valley Lake in Hemet -- at such an alarming rate that private boating will be prohibited beginning next month, it was announced Tuesday.

“This action speaks volumes about the seriousness of the water supply situation Southern California faces now and next year,” said MWD General Manager Jeffrey Kightlinger. “That’s why continued conservation is so essential.”

Starting April 15, the MWD will indefinitely suspend boat launching privileges -- with the exception of lakeside rental boat launches -- on the lake, Kightlinger said. The last time such a restriction was imposed occurred in October 2008, when drought conditions caused the reservoir’s levels to drop precipitously.

Diamond Valley Lake has a storage capacity of 810,000 acre-feet of water. Its current capacity registers 390,000 acre-feet -- less than half full. Since January 2014, lake levels have dropped 44 feet as water was siphoned out to meet area water agencies’ needs, according to MWD officials.

“Diamond Valley Lake’s exposed shoreline and dry boat ramp serve as a stark reminder to Southland consumers about the importance of saving water during this drought,” Kightlinger said.

He regrets the damper that boating restrictions will have on summer activities but emphasized that Diamond Valley Lake’s “primary purpose is to help maintain water supply reliability for metropolitan, our 26 member public agencies and nearly 19 million Californians.”

Despite the new prohibition, the public will be able to continue to rent authorized outboards, kayaks and canoes for recreational use -- as long as boarding docks remain serviceable. MWD officials added that fishing will remain permissible on three miles of shoreline, and the lake’s View Trail will remain open for hiking, biking and horseback riding.

Swimming has not been permitted at the reservoir since it opened in the late 1990s.

Kightlinger said the the MWD will continue to pump water out of the lake to meet demand, even though there’s a risk the reservoir could reach its lowest level since it was established as a storage site in 1999.

Last week, MWD Chairman Randy Record addressed officials from inland water agencies and municipalities, warning that restrictions would be necessary to reduce outflows from surface and groundwater reservoirs.

Record, a Riverside County resident and member of the Perris-based Eastern Municipal Water District, pointed out that 55 percent of Southern California’s water supply is imported from the Colorado River and Northern California, via the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, where supplies are already strained or under tight restrictions.

“The drought is our biggest and most pressing issue,” Record said. “We have to manage, very carefully, what reserves we have left. We don’t know what next year’s going to look like.”

This year marks the fourth consecutive year of drought statewide.