Catalina copes with the drought

Avalon on Catalina, where ratepayers must reduce their water consumption.

Avalon on Catalina, where ratepayers must reduce their water consumption.

(Bob Chamberlin / Los Angeles Times)

May 8, 2015 3:55 AM PT

Hotels are shipping laundry to the mainland for washing, contractors are mixing cement with water they import by barge and residents are squaring off with developers over choices between rationing and curbing growth.

Parched

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

(Bob Chamberlin / Los Angeles Times)

Thompson Reservoir in 1977

Edison worker Bob O’Guin surveys a dried-up area of Catalina Island’s Thompson Reservoir.

(Joe Kennedy / Los Angeles Times)

Water for construction

(Bob Chamberlin / Los Angeles Times)

Clean laundry from the mainland

Sergio Tobar passes a bin of unloaded clean laundry from the mainland.

(Bob Chamberlin / Los Angeles Times)

Water and laundry

Luis Martinez drives a trailer off the barge from the mainland.

(Bob Chamberlin / Los Angeles Times)

Hotel reminder

A sign on the sink at the Atwater Hotel reminds guests of the drought conditions.

(Bob Chamberlin / Los Angeles Times)

Catalina vineyard

Water pipes, right, run next to fence at a vineyard in the interior of Catalina Island.

(Bob Chamberlin / Los Angeles Times)

Precious resource

A bison grazes at the edge of the Thompson Reservoir.

(Bob Chamberlin / Los Angeles Times)

Catalina cactus

Cactus grows next to fence at a vinyard in the interior of Catalina Island.

(Bob Chamberlin / Los Angeles Times)

Low water levels

Cindy Lazaris of the Catalina Island Conservancy walks past an abandoned boat that used to sit at the water’s edge at Thompson Reservoir.

(Bob Chamberlin / Los Angeles Times)

Catalina deer

A deer pauses as it munches dry brush in Avalon.

(Bob Chamberlin / Los Angeles Times)

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