The Metropolitan Water District has spent $16 million in ratepayer money to finance an unusual museum that officials hope will tell "the story of water" in Southern California.

But today, months before its grand opening on a remote plain in Riverside County, the water museum is drowning in multimillion-dollar debt.

Next month, the MWD board will be asked to spend $4 million or more to save the Center for Water Education from bankruptcy. Several contractors who have worked on the project, near the Diamond Valley Reservoir in Hemet, have filed liens saying they haven't been paid.