Last Friday’s report that California’s snowpack is just 38% of normal underscores the importance for Tulare County to not only take the drought more seriously, but to brace for drier winters to become the rule rather than the exception.

Two Tulare County irrigation water agencies aren’t waiting around to see how the state will cope with the current and future drought and are taking steps to secure more water storage in the Kaweah Subbasin. Tulare Irrigation District (TID) and Consolidated Peoples Ditch Company (CPDC) purchased 260 acres in December 2020 near McKay Point, where the Kaweah River forks into the Lower Kaweah and St. John’s rivers near Lemon Cove, to build a reservoir capable of storing 8,000 acre feet of water.