SoCal water district declares emergency

LOS ANGELES — Southern California water officials took the unprecedented step Tuesday of declaring a water shortage emergency and restricting outdoor watering to just one day a week in parts of Los Angeles, Ventura and San Bernardino counties — an action that will impact about 6 million people.

The outdoor watering restrictions would take effect June 1, according to the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, and apply to areas that are dependent on water from the drought-ravaged State Water Project.

With the state’s major reservoirs at low levels, the MWD has been left without enough water to meet demands in parts of Southern California, officials said.

Cities and smaller water suppliers that get water from MWD are required to start restricting outdoor watering to one day a week, or to find other ways to cut usage to a new monthly allocation limit.

The State Water Project delivers water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta to farmlands and cities to the south.