Where Your Water Comes From

The Hydrology, Infrastructure And Institutional Framework

Altadena water comes from one of three retail sources:

You buy your water from a Mutual Water Company. It is a non-profit corporation, not a government. You and your neighbors own your Mutual. It is unlikely that the media will ever report on your Mutual. If you want to know what it is doing, you need to ask the Mutual’s board.

Your Mutual gets your water from one of three sources:

1 The Raymond Basin – Your Mutual pumps groundwater from the basin and delivers it to you. This is done in accordance with the Raymond Basin Judgment which splits the basin among of 16 Parties.

2 Colorado River – Metropolitan Water District of Southern California moves water from the River in the Colorado River Aqueduct and delivers it to Foothill Municipal Water District in the Arroyo Seco.

Foothill MWD moves it Altadena (and to some folks in La Canada and La Crescenta) and sells it to your Mutual.

You share the Colorado River with the folks, farms and factories of seven states, Indian tribes, and Mexico in accordance with the “Law of the River” and contracts between agencies and companies.

3 The Feather River – The State Water Project moves water from the Feather River, through the Delta, into the California Aqueduct and south to Metropolitan Water District.

Metropolitan in one of 29 contractors who receive water from the State Water Project.

The State Water Project shares the Feather River has 1,000 or so other water rights holders in accordance with California Constitution as implemented by gobs of court decisions, contracts, the State Water Code and such. The State Water Project is run by the State Department of Water.

The State Water Project is run by the California Department of Water Resources

Your water is subject to

If you want to change your water supply you need to have your
hand on several of these. But, you do control how you use your water.