As California braced for yet another round of winter storms Wednesday, state water officials announced that they were again boosting supplies for water agencies that serve 27 million residents.
The Department of Water Resources said it now expects to deliver 35% of requested water supplies — up from the 30% announced last month — via the State Water Project.
California’s water board decided Tuesday to temporarily allow more storage in Central Valley reservoirs, waiving state rules that require water to be released to protect salmon and other endangered fish.
The waiver means more water can be sent to the cities and growers that receive supplies from the San Joaquin-Sacramento Delta through the State Water Project and the federal Central Valley Project. The state aqueduct delivers water to 27 million people, mostly in Southern California, and 750,000 acres of farmland, while the Central Valley Project mostly serves farms.
Following the driest three-year period on record, California experienced one of the wettest three weeks in January. But now those extreme wet conditions have activated a water quality standard in the Delta that, coupled with the extended dry period since then, could result in a sharp reduction in the amount of water that can be retained or moved into storage for both the State Water Project and federal Central Valley Project.
The Department of Water Resources and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation are working in real time to operate the state’s water system to maximize water supply while protecting species and the environment. However, California continues to experience unprecedented swings in weather impacting water management operations.
Because of these extreme weather swings, DWR and Reclamation are taking proactive measures to manage the state’s water supply to store and capture more water in preparation for a return to hot, dry weather in the next two months.
Both agencies submitted a Temporary Urgency Change Petition (TUCP) to the State Water Resources Control Board requesting approval to modify compliance with Delta water quality conditions specified in their water right permits, while proposing measures to avoid impacts on Delta smelt.
DWR and Reclamation typically would seek this kind of change during extremely dry conditions. But the swing to extremely wet conditions after extremely dry conditions has created challenges, and the projects are acting to enable additional opportunities for water storage north and south of the Delta while maintaining protections for species.
The request for the TUCP follows protective actions taken by DWR and Reclamation under state and federal endangered species permits in late December and early January, including the “first flush” action to reduce pumping and allow storm runoff to flow through the system for the benefit of native fish species. Recent monitoring information shows the actions worked as intended, with key fish species moving downstream of the Delta and away from the direct influence of the SWP and CVP pumps.
The water quality and water right permits that dictate SWP and CVP operations require certain water quality conditions to be met at specific compliance points in the Delta to provide for favorable conditions for endangered fish species. In consultation with the Department of Fish and Wildlife, DWR and Reclamation are requesting that the State Water Resources Control Board temporarily move the compliance point in the projects’ water rights permits from Port Chicago six miles east to Chipps Island. The alternative compliance point is anticipated to ensure water quality sufficient to protect beneficial uses.
If approved by the State Water Board, these actions would allow DWR and Reclamation to move and retain more stormwater and runoff in the state’s reservoirs in preparation for continued dry periods. A total of approximately 300,000 acre-feet would be saved for later use by the State Water Project alone.
While the January storms provided much-needed rain and snowfall, they did not end drought conditions for much of the state and California remains in a drought emergency. Regions that rely on the Colorado River system face increasingly severe water shortage conditions, and groundwater basins that serve communities in the Central Valley will not recover quickly from back-to-back years of drought and chronic overdraft.
DWR will continue to work with federal and state partners to be proactive and respond in real time to balance multiple water supply needs.
Federal water managers on Monday warned California cities and industrial users receiving water from the Central Valley Project to prepare for a fourth year of drought and possibly “extremely limited water supply” during 2023.
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, an agency of the Interior Department that oversees water resource management, said drought conditions in California have persisted despite early storms this month, and warned of looming water conservation actions.
Few places are more critical to the water supply in California than this immense northern reservoir in the foothills of the Cascade Range.
Fed by runoff from 14,163-foot Mount Shasta and other peaks, California’s largest reservoir opened in 1945 as part of the federal Central Valley Project, an elaborate system of man-made dams, pumps and aqueducts that aims to reduce flood risks and deliver water to farms and cities in the heart of the semiarid state.
After a third straight year of severe drought, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation’s Central Valley Project in California is beginning the 2023 water year with 3.6 million acre-feet of water in storage — one of the lowest starting points in recent years.
California’s largest reservoir, Shasta Lake, is located 175 miles north of Sacramento. But what happens there impacts farming throughout the entire Central Valley.
Shasta Lake is capable of holding 4,552,100 acre-feet of water, which is almost five times the capacity of Folsom Lake. When full, Shasta boasts 365 miles of scenic shoreline. But for those visiting the lake in recent months, it is impossible to ignore how that shoreline is shrinking. The water is about 150 feet below the ideal surface level.
“We’re coming out of the three driest years on record,” explained Don Bader, area manager for the Bureau of Reclamation. “So that’s a huge hit to our storage, as you can see.”
Farmers and cities on the east side of the Valley may get more water than they originally thought.
Friant Water Authority, which operates the Friant-Kern Canal, said in a recent memo on its website it is confident its contractors will not only get the 15% allocation of surface water deliveries announced in February but that the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation will likely increase the amount to 20%, possibly as early as this week.
As California toils through a third consecutive drought year, many Sacramento Valley farmers, well known for supporting waterfowl that stop along the Pacific Flyway, are being left high and dry.
The farmers are facing water-supply challenges that are worse this season than in previous dry years.
“This drought is hitting Northern California really hard and in some unprecedented ways,” said Ellen Hanak, director of water policy for the Public Policy Institute of California, speaking last week on drought at a meeting of the California State Board of Food and Agriculture.
The federal government did not breach its contract when it gave water users, including the city of Fresno, a zero water allocation in the extreme drought year of 2014, according to a ruling issued June 6 in Federal Claims Court.
It may not seem fair, Judge Armando Bonilla wrote in his ruling, and “To be clear, a zero allocation for the Friant contractors was harsh,” but the fact is the Friant division of the Central Valley Project is outranked by superior water rights held by the San Joaquin River Exchange Contractors.
The Water News Network is San Diego County’s source for water news and information.
