State Will Be Asked to Open Spigots : Drought: Water districts will formally ask that deliveries to urban areas be increased. That would bring the MWD’s supplies close to normal levels.

SACRAMENTO —  Contending that the state can now afford to release more water, the public agencies served by the State Water Project voted Thursday to formally request an increase in deliveries to Southern California and other urban areas.

Agency officials, suggesting that the state had been dragging its feet on water supply decisions, said the latest surveys of state reservoirs show they hold enough water to boost the project’s deliveries from 20% to 30% of normal.

An increase in that amount would give the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, the state project’s biggest urban customer, an additional 170,000 acre-feet and bring its water supplies for the year close to normal levels. An acre-foot is roughly the amount of water a typical Los Angeles family of five uses in 18 months.

“We’re going to urge them to do it as quickly as they can, which probably will be early July,” said George R. Baumli, general manager of the State Water Contractors.

Even with a 10% increase in deliveries, Baumli said the water contractors believe the state would still have sufficient water in storage for next year should 1992 turn out to be the sixth year of drought. The latest reservoir surveys show the state has 2.7-million acre-feet in storage, a small portion of which belongs to an emergency water bank.

State officials said reservoir levels are still well below normal, but are not at the critical stage, as they were as recently as February.

In February, with state reservoirs nearly dry and rainfall at record-low levels, officials stopped all water deliveries to agricultural customers and cut back those to municipal and industrial users by 90%. After copious rain fell in March, deliveries to urban customers were increased 10%, to 20% of normal.

Since then, Baumli said, state officials have been slow to make any more water supply decisions, in part because Gov. Pete Wilson’s office has become involved in water issues and because they did not want to discourage local conservation programs that were getting under way.

Baumli said water supply decisions that once were made solely on the basis of technical data by the director of the Department of Water Resources now must be routed through the governor’s office for approval.

Moreover, he said, conservation programs started by MWD and the Santa Clara Valley Water District in San Jose are now established, and there is no need to fear that they will be jeopardized by a 10% increase.

Despite the water contractors’ urging, officials at the Department of Water Resources said it still may be some time before a decision is made to release more water.

“I don’t disagree with the contractors. It looks like there is enough water for another 10% (increase in deliveries), but we aren’t prepared yet to make any modification in deliveries,” said Larry Mullnix, the department’s deputy director.

He said the decision probably will be made by the governor, who became involved in water issues during the drought emergency by establishing a task force and organizing the emergency water bank.

Because water supplies are still well below normal--despite having improved substantially since February--Mullnix said officials are reluctant to draw down any of their reserves.

“What we don’t want to do is yo-yo the public,” he said. “The public is responding very well, as the water people have asked them to, and we don’t want to discourage that.”

Other urban districts besides MWD that would benefit from an increase in deliveries include the San Gabriel Valley Water District, the Alameda County Water District, the Kern County Water District, which serves Bakersfield, and the Santa Clara district.

In normal years, MWD gets about half of its supply from the State Water Project. This year, the MWD has been able to replace some of the water it lost from the project by buying more from its other source--the Colorado River--and by purchasing additional supplies from the state water bank.