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Cities and farms across California will receive even less water this year than the meager amount they had been promised two months ago from the State Water Project, a massive system of dams, pipes and canals that typically provides water to 27 million people from Silicon Valley to San Diego.
The administration of Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Friday that because of record-dry conditions in January and February, the State Water Project will provide only 5% of the amount of water cities and farms have contracts to receive, down from 15% in mid-January.
“We are experiencing climate change whiplash in real time with extreme swings between wet and dry conditions,” said Karla Nemeth, director of the state Department of Water Resources. “That means adjusting quickly based on the data and the science.”
The cuts will reduce the amount of water delivered from about 650,000 acre feet to 350,000, after accounting for adjustments for “health and safety” concerns in some areas, state water officials said.
Nemeth also announced Friday that the state will seal up an 800-foot-long emergency rock barrier in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta by April 15 to stop salty water from San Francisco Bay being drawn too far inland toward giant state and federal pumps near Tracy that send water south to cities and farms.
The announcement about the State Water Project means water supplies will be tight in California for a third year in a row.
Approved by voters in 1960 and a key legacy of former Gov. Pat Brown, the project moves water from Northern California to the south across 600 miles of canals, pumps and reservoirs from Lake Oroville in Butte County to Lake Perris in Riverside County. In normal times, it supplies drinking water to two out of three Californians — and irrigates about 750,000 acres of farmland.
Among the agencies affected by Wednesday’s news are the Santa Clara Valley Water District, in San Jose, which provides drinking water to 2 million South Bay residents and relies on the State Water Project for 20% to 30% of its normal annual supply. Also hit: Alameda County Water District, which serves 360,000 people in Fremont, Newark and Union City; and the Zone 7 Water Agency, which serves Livermore, Pleasanton and Dublin.
The Santa Clara Valley Water District is expected to try to make up the shortfall with more groundwater pumping and buying water from farmers in the Sacramento Valley with senior water rights. But prices are going up and available water is going down. Next month, the district’s board is likely to consider asking the public to reduce lawn watering from the currently recommended three days a week to one or two days, said Aaron Baker, a chief operating officer of the district.
“The drought is worsening,” Baker said.
But unless Newsom issues statewide mandatory urban water restrictions, it will be left up to each city and private water company to decide whether they want to enforce such rules, which cut their revenues because less water is sold.
Friday’s news does not affect customers of the East Bay Municipal Utility District, Contra Costa Water District, Marin Municipal Water District or San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, who receive their water from other sources and projects.
Urban areas such as San Jose, Fremont and Livermore, along with Los Angeles and Napa, will have to find other water sources, including local reservoirs, groundwater, tougher conservation rules, and purchases from farm agencies to get through the year. And many farmers will have to pump more groundwater or fallow fields.
The State Water Project also supplies roughly 30% of the water needs in normal years to the massive Metropolitan Water District in Los Angeles, which supplies water to 19 million people.
“Unfortunately, so far the level of conservation we’re seeing from the public is not matching the severity of these conditions,” said Adel Hagekhalil, general manager of the Metropolitan Water District. “We all need to take this drought more seriously.”
Last July, Newsom declared a drought emergency and asked all urban California residents to cut water use 15% from 2020 levels. But so far as the drought heads into a third year, they have cut only 6.4%, with Bay Area residents reducing 11% and residents in the Los Angeles-Orange County-San Diego area cutting by just 5%.
Hagekhalil also called upon the Newsom and Biden administrations to speed efforts to build more water supply projects.
On Thursday, the Biden administration announced it is offering a $2.2 billion low-interest loan to the Sites Reservoir project. Plans call for building a huge new $4 billion off-stream reservoir in Colusa County, north of Davis that would be filled with diversions from the Sacramento River in wet years.
The project, which has been proposed since the 1950s, would be similar in size to San Luis Reservoir between Gilroy and Los Banos, and would hold 1.5 million acre feet of water when full, enough for the annual needs of about 7.5 million people a year.
It is opposed by the Sierra Club and other environmental groups, along with and some native tribes, who say it will divert too much water from the Delta and could harm salmon and other species.
On Thursday, California’s two Democratic senators, Dianne Feinstein and Alex Padilla, issued a statement supporting the project.
“We can all see with our own eyes that climate change is making droughts much worse for California. We must take action,” Feinstein said. “For decades I’ve worked to fund projects that store more water from the wet years to use during the dry years as part of a comprehensive drought mitigation program that includes conservation, water recycling, desalination and water use efficiency. I’m pleased that California is finally on the verge of constructing several major storage projects. Sites Reservoir is the largest and will provide the most significant benefits for our water system.”
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