Californians urged to cut water after driest year

By Jill Serjeant

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Southern Californians, fond of their private pools, golf courses, garden sprinklers and the ubiquitous car wash, are being urged to reform their water-guzzling ways after the region's driest year on record.

A mere 3.2 inches of rain -- less than a quarter as much as usual -- fell on downtown Los Angeles in the year beginning on July 1, 2006, the lowest since records began 130 years ago.

A hot summer of short showers is forecast to follow.

Rainfall totals were little better in other nearby cities, something experts say is a reminder that current water consumption levels seem unsustainable.

The water sources hundreds of miles away that transformed Los Angeles from a semi-arid town 100 years ago into the nation's second-largest city are also shrinking.

"We have a system that is at risk, especially if we continue to have population growth, putting people in dry places and figuring a way to overcome local water limits," said David Carle, author of "Water and the California Dream."

Local water sources would support a population of about 3 million in southern California. Yet 18 million people now live here.

The Eastern Sierra mountains, from where Los Angeles gets about half of its water supply, had its second-lowest snowpack on record this year. The Colorado River, whose waters are piped in via a 242-mile (389-km) aqueduct, is in its eighth year of drought.