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Climate change could upset the complex interplay of rain, snow and temperature in the West, hurting food production, the environment and electrical generation at dams, the federal government warned Tuesday.

Some areas could get more rain and less snow, reducing the snowmelt flowing into reservoirs in the summer when farmers need it to irrigate, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation report said. Higher temperatures would mean more evaporation from reservoirs, particularly in California’s Sacramento and San Joaquin river basins.

Filling the Salton Sea with imported water from Mexico is not a new idea. The proposal has been around in one form or another since the 1970s. While the idea has a track record of inspiring excitement, support hasn’t translated to funding.

Previous studies – including by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and the Salton Sea Authority – deemed it too costly to pull off. But the tides have changed. At the beginning of 2018 the Imperial Irrigation District is set to cut off flow of water from Colorado River into the Salton Sea, as required by the 2003 Quantification Settlement Agreement.

The so-called March Miracle has unleashed the largest allocation of water from Northern California in four years, more than doubling the flow of imported water from the State Water Project into Central and Southern California.

By increasing the official allocation from the State Water Project from 5 percent in 2014 to 45 percent today, the state Department of Water Resources has sent signals the drought is easing, although far from vanquished.

The so-called March Miracle has unleashed the largest allocation of water from Northern California in four years, more than doubling the flow of imported water from the State Water Project into Central and Southern California.

By increasing the official allocation from the State Water Project from 5 percent in 2014 to 45 percent today, the state Department of Water Resources has sent signals the drought is easing, although far from vanquished.

 

In the world of California water, there is a saying about how our statewide system is supposed to work: “big gulp, little sip.”

The idea is to pump, move and store water from the mountains and snowpack when Mother Nature makes it available. But when it is dry, rivers run low and fish need the water, the pumps are turned way down. California’s water supply is reasonably generous — we are not an arid state. But it is exceedingly volatile, going from very wet to very dry year to year. This big-gulp strategy is designed with that in mind.