Despite the Bay Area’s recent spattering of rain, persistent statewide drought conditions led federal water managers to announce severe restrictions Wednesday.
Municipal and industrial water users for much of the federal Central Valley Project, the backbone of the state’s water storage and delivery system, will receive only 25 percent of their water allocations, according to an initial announcement from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation.
For many farmers, the news is even worse.
“Our agricultural customers have gotten a zero percent allocation and our urban customers, including industry, have only gotten 25 percent of their delivery and that’s bad news,” said Gary Kremen, chairman of the Santa Clara Valley Water District’s board.
Valley Water, which serves roughly 2 million people and sells water to 13 different water retailers in the South Bay, draws about 25 percent of its water from the federal system.
“It’s super grim,” Kremen said. “We’re not happy. No one here is happy.”
Compounding its troubles, Valley Water only received 15 percent of its allocation from the state-run water system this year, Kremen said.
The water district is looking at trying to make “emergency” water purchases from other districts, asking the state to grant it more water based on human health and safety considerations, redoubling its conservation efforts and appealing to a higher power.
“We’re praying for rain like everyone else,” Kremen said.
The announcement comes on the heels of a historically dry January and February and after the U.S. Drought Monitor classified most of the state as still enduring severe drought conditions.
With the state’s snowpack still well below normal levels for this date and most of its reservoirs still below historic averages, the stage was set for continued water restrictions and curtailments.
“It’s not surprising based on what’s in the reservoirs and the fact that it was a dry January and February,” said Jennifer Allen, spokesperson for Contra Costa Water District, which gets the majority of its water from the Central Valley Project and serves roughly 500,000 people in the central and eastern parts of the county.
Allen said she expects the final decision on water deliveries from the federal system to come down the pipe in the next few months.
“Since this is the initial allocation, we’ll keep our existing drought program in place and continue to evaluate any changes that come during rest of the winter months,” she said.
A recent two-week measurement from the state Department of Water Resources forecast may put a damper on things, however.
It shows a decrease of 1.2 million acre-feet in the annual amount of water flowing into the federal system’s most important reservoirs — Shasta, Oroville, Folsom and New Melones.
“I wish that I had different news today. I don’t want to deliver this news,” said Russell Callejo, deputy regional director at the Bureau of Reclamation’s California Great Basin Region.
“We have a continued dry pattern that is really unprecedented, and I don’t say that lightly,” Callejo said. “Every sector of California life is going to be affected by this drought.”
22 comments
So, let’s use inordinate amounts of water for lithium mining???
🤦🏼♀️
Exactly!!!
Unless we have a drastic overhaul of the people in positions of power in this state and all over the country, Russia and China win. They aren’t reactive like we are, they are aggressive and proactive.
There will be no massive overhaul, no “awakening” (eternal september makes sure there is a constant flow of ignorant brainwashed voters) that can happen fast enough.
GG YA’LL.
Thanks CJRN
I didn’t realize that lithium mining used up a lot of water, or was even happening here
If lithium is mined by pumping up the brine in salt flats and then drying it off, doesn’t that generate fresh water – or does it damage the underlying water table or what?
Do you have a link for info?
Clive, here’s one of the articles that I read.
https://www.nytimes.com/ 2021/05/06/business/lithium-mining-race.html
We have the whole Pacific Ocean and these fools keep yelling drought. We have enough money that we could flood the state. All I know is that I am planting things that will need water.
But at least the Delta smelt will be okay right?
I’m also going to be curious if these ‘water managers’ have green lawns, swimming pools and what their water usage is!
I bet it’s another “rules for thee not for me” type thing.
Exactly!!!
Think decisions will be made on new Dams. providing drinking water and crops over fish ? ? ? . . . . . Ya, me neither.
Sill like bumper sticker I saw years ago,
Save water fight forest fires
with delta smelt
Daily Reservoir Storage Summary worth a bookmark
https://tinyurl.com/2p8652mj
Let’s save water by placing a moratorium on construction, and deporting everybody that is in this country illegally.
I like the way you think! Dawg for Governor.
I like that plan.
@Dawg…..No no no…. you’re making just too much sense.
They are building like it is going out of style and the border has a welcome sign hanging. Not only water but roads are also impacted. They get elected to make things worse.
+1
They want the farmers to go broke so they can buy cheap land for the bullet train to nowhere and for low-income housing.
Translation = we need to raise your water rates.
The government is supposed to provide the people with the services they need to survive.
Water is a huge responsibility that the government has mismanaged for decades.
There should be no end to what the government would do to supply water to not only farmers but the entire population.
Yet all they do is restrict water usage and put farmers out of business.
Another government failure and the people suffer.
However just yesterday Joe and Gavin announced new mining initiatives in California. That project will require a huge amount of water. Don’t these guys ever plan ahead?
A rhetorical question. They should call their mining project “Gump & Gump”.
What is it going to take before the Governor gets desalination plants being constructed? Expecting people to live in a state where water rationing is “normal” is not a solution. Build desalination plants NOW.
The officials in this state are incompetent. The governor Newsom is criminally stupid and incompetent. Our own supervisors and city managers are beyond stupid and incompetent. Our once bountiful county and state are being driven into ruin.
Between strip mining, water release from reservoirs, mask and jab mandates … What is going on here? I ask again, are your children abused in public schools with CRT?
The only way this is stops is if we elect people to state and local office that will stop immigration and allow dams and aquifers to be built. When was the last time the state built a dam?
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