Three Valleys Directors and staff with keynote speaker Deven Upadhyay of Metropolitan, center. From left: Board Vice President Carlos Goytia, Director Jorge Marquez, Board President Mike Ti, Upadhyay, Director Jody Roberto, General Manager Matt Litchfield and Director David De Jesus.
outside sources. The film’s message was successful, as voters in 1931 approved a $220 million bond for construction and work began on the Colorado River aqueduct, which was completed in 1941. “They had to carry the momentum to get the vote of the public to be able to do that,” said Upadhyay, adding he was “amazed at the clarity of thought and absolute conviction” in the message that persuaded the public. “This is the way that we did it,” he said. “You gotta have money.” Upadhyay explained the historical funding stream for the State Water
Colorado River are essentially oversubscribed,” he said. This problem is being mitigated by southwestern states using less river water, he added. Metropolitan formed in 1928 and most of the water infrastructure is 75-80 years old. It would cost an estimated $25-40 billion to replace all Metropolitan facilities – not counting the land. The agency must fund a yearly capital program to replace and refurbish facilities, with about 1-2% replacement costs per year; 1% of $40 billion is $400 million. Metropolitan’s capital program is now about $300 million. Upadhyay observed, “That tells you where our capital program has to go just to be able to continue to maintain our system and where our workforce has to go to be able to pull off all those projects.” At the end of the presentation, Three Valleys Director David De Jesus commented, “I suppose if we enjoy what we have today, we have to fight to keep it. And that includes the fight against climate change and contamination and that is costly in nature.” Three Valleys Director Jeff Hanlon noted that in the past, the message with regards to water was, “If we build it they will come, the future is now, let’s build this infrastructure. It was a salable message.” “Now we’re in this new era where it’s, ‘We must build it and conserve. We must build it to maintain the status quo,’ which is not as sexy, right? And so I wonder, what is the message then?” said Hanlon. “What can we share to make this message imperative real to people?” Upadhyay replied, “The intensity of those discussions has to ramp up.” Three Valleys Municipal Water District is one of the 26 water agencies that comprise the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. The district will hosted its 75th Anniversary Gala on Oct. 30 and the next Leadership Breakfast is planned for February 2026. Visit www.threevalleys.com.
Project (SWP) and Metropolitan, and how periods of growth allowed the agency to build large projects like the Diamond Valley Lake reservoir near Hemet. Water demand today is lower and flattening out, thanks to massive spending to increase efficiency, he said, and this likely won’t change. “The nature of the problem we have today is fundamentally different. We are no longer building big projects in order to meet growth and water demand. Instead, we are investing in the existing water system and investing in new supplies because we are losing reliability from what we had before,” Upadhyay explained. The SWP can’t produce as many acre-feet of water as it used to, he said, due to climate change and less reliable infrastructure, among other factors. Future projections show a further drop. “We’re going to have to invest to stem the tide on this,” he said. The same problem is predicted for the Colorado River as original water agreements for river water were based on higher past yields, said Upadhyay. “All of the water rights on the
Navigating Metropolitan’s Future Metropolitan Water District of Southern California faces challenges maintaining public support to fund new water reliability projects and refurbish aging infrastructure
By Amy Bentley W ater agency leaders and government officials from across the San Gabriel Valley learned about the challenges facing the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California in the era of climate change as Metropolitan nears its 100th birthday in 2028. Deven Upadhyay, Metropolitan’s General Manager, delivered a keynote address called “Navigating Metropolitan’s Future”
projects to expand the water supply and refurbish aging water infrastructure. Upadhyay played a snippet of a decades-old short film shown in movie theaters a century ago to promote building the Colorado River Aqueduct. The narrator warns about the dangers of over-drafting underground water sources in Southern California and predicts that the desert would reclaim the Southland unless more water was brought in from
at the Three Valleys Municipal Water District Leadership Breakfast, held at the Kellogg West Conference Center at Cal Poly Pomona. Attendees included Three Valleys Board President Mike Ti, Vice President Carlos Goytia, Secretary/Treasurer Jeff Hanlon, Director David De Jesus, Director Jorge Marquez, and Director Jody Roberto. Water district leaders from across the Valley and representatives for elected state lawmakers were among the 125 guests at the June 26 breakfast. Upadhyay, who is retiring at year’s end, said Metropolitan has some big decisions to make in the next few years regarding how it works with member agencies to provide reliable water supplies while also maintaining public support – and spending – for
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