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Many California farmers expect to receive full deliveries of irrigation water this year from a vast system of canals and reservoirs run by the federal government, while some in the nation’s most productive farming region will receive a fraction as the state recovers from several years of drought, officials said Friday.

Farms and water customers in the state’s northern Sacramento Valley will get their full water supplies from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. It’s a big improvement over last year, when those farmers received no water and neighboring cities got one-quarter of their contracted amounts. 

 

In the latest sign of California’s improving drought picture, federal officials announced Friday that cities will receive 55 percent of their contracted water amounts this summer — up from 25 percent last year — from the Central Valley Project, California’s largest water delivery system.

Heavy rains in March boosted the amount of water in Northern California’s large reservoirs such as Shasta and Folsom, allowing farmers in the Sacramento Valley and wildlife refuges to receive 100 percent of their contracted amounts, while the Contra Costa Water District also will receive 100 percent, up from 25 percent a year ago.

As if we needed more proof, the Sierra snow survey last week made clear that Californians must continue to conserve water while working to build a more reliable water system.

The snowpack is roughly normal in Northern California. But the situation is worse in Southern California, where El Niño was a bust, delivering half of normal rainfall.

Ballot measure establishes in the California Constitution — above the reach of politicians, bureaucrats, special interests or judges — that the priorities of water use are: domestic use first, and irrigation use second.

A proposed California ballot measure funds water storage projects to address the state’s immediate water supply needs. The proposed Reallocation of Bond Authority to Water Storage Initiative also prioritizes water uses in California by putting people and growing food first in the California Constitution. For 25 years, politicians, bureaucrats, special interests and the courts have made other uses of water more important than domestic and irrigation uses.

A nearly average spring snowpack in the Sierra Nevada will likely prolong tough water conservation measures in drought-stricken California – although the restrictions could be loosened in some areas after an El Nino storm system drenched the northern half of the state this winter, officials said.

“The message is still very strong: Conservation measures are still going to be important,” Frank Gehrke, chief of the California Cooperative Snow Survey Program, said Wednesday after he trudged through the snow to manually measure the snowpack at nearly 95 percent of normal.