Quaint island resort town struggling with water supply

Cindy Lazaris of the Catalina Island Conservancy
walks along cracked earth that
used to form the bottom of the Thompson Reservoir. 

This quaint resort town has a reputation for making visitors feel as if they’re an ocean apart from the troubled megalopolis 22 miles to the east.

So it figures that the tourists in Hawaiian shirts and flip-flops strolling past Avalon’s restaurants, bars and trinket shops seemed unruffled by the news that has riveted the attention of residents and business owners: As of Tuesday, the utility serving the island has imposed Stage 3 rationing, requiring everyone to slash their water use by 40% to 50%.

Drought is not new to the 4,500 residents who rely both on modern desalination plants and a complicated relic of old wells, pumps, tanks and miles of 10-inch pipelines to serve their water needs and those of the 700,000 tourists who visit each year.

Read The Los Angeles Times story - “Despite desalinating water, floating it in by barge and taking short showers, Catalina islanders are told to cut back even more.”