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MID Sets Water Allotment and Lets Farmers Share Supply Amid Yet Another Drought

/in , , /by /The Modesto Beeby John Holland

The Modesto Irrigation District will deliver about 60% of its usual water this year because of the persistent drought.

The district board voted 5-0 Tuesday morning for this allotment from the Tuolumne River. It affects about 58,000 acres of farmland, as well as a treatment plant that eases reliance on groundwater in Modesto and a few other towns.

MID is in relatively good shape as California’s drought enters its third year. The Turlock Irrigation District, which also diverts from the Tuolumne, has not yet set a 2022 allotment for its nearly 150,000 acres.

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‘Extreme Year’: Past 12 Months Among the Driest Ever in California History

/in , , /by /The Union Democratby Guy McCarthy

The current ongoing two-year dry period in California, punctuated by the third-driest water year on record for the Central Sierra, is part of California’s overall arid fate so far in the 21st century, according to the state Department of Water Resources.

The Golden State’s hydrology now increasingly resembles conditions in the Colorado River Basin this century, where multiple, consecutive, drier-than-average years are mixed with an occasional wet year. California’s last wet water year was 2016-2017, the second-wettest on record.

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