Valley water districts want more water. Federal agency says that can’t happen. Here’s why
The federal agency that serves as the nation’s largest supplier of water announced Tuesday that there will be reduced water shipments for the central San Joaquin Valley in 2020 – a decision the Bureau of Reclamation said was informed by extra-dry conditions.
Agricultural water service contractors of the Central Valley Project south of the Delta were told they will receive 15% of their contract supply in the initial 2020 allocation.
Fresno is on pace to tie for its second driest month of February ever since rainfall records began in the late 1800s, the National Weather Service at Hanford announced this week.
Yet despite below-average precipitation and Sierra snowpack in January and February, Central Valley Project reservoirs are still hovering above average thanks to a wet winter last year, the Bureau of Reclamation said.
The bureau’s water allocation announcement concerns contractors of the Central Valley Project – a massive system of reservoirs and canals that transports water 450 miles from Lake Shasta in Northern California to Bakersfield.
It comes less than a week after President Donald Trump visited Bakersfield, where Trump promised to deliver more water to Valley farmers with the signing of a presidential memorandum that went along with the unveiling of a new operations plan by the Department of the Interior and Bureau of Reclamation.
The state of California filed a lawsuit against that plan last week, “to challenge the federal biological opinions to protect highly imperiled fish species close to extinction.”
Westlands Water District: There’s some ‘good news’
Westlands Water District in western Fresno and Kings counties, which describes itself as the nation’s largest ag water district, wishes the bureau’s allocation was larger. Still, compared to other dry years, a 15% allocation in February is “good news,” officials said.
The district said in a statement that this water year is looking similar to 2009, when south-of-the-Delta ag water contractors of the Central Valley Project received a 10% allocation – and not until April.
Westlands also voiced support for the new federal biological opinions. They restore “operational flexibility” to the Central Valley Project and State Water Project, Westlands said, “while at the same time providing more protection for listed species.”
“Indeed, if those biological opinions had been in effect in 2019,” the district continued, “the projects would have been able to conserve more than an additional 1 million acre-feet of water. That is enough water to irrigate 300,000 acres of land or serve more than 2 million households in urban areas served by the CVP and SWP.”
California water allocations south of the Delta
Other Central Valley Project contractors south of the Delta fared better than the 15% allocation announced for ag water service users.
The San Joaquin River Exchange Contractors and San Joaquin Settlement Contractors were told they will receive 100% of their contract supply.
Additionally, municipal and industrial water service contractors south of the Delta will receive “the greater of 65% of their historic use or public health and safety needs.”
Wildlife refuges north and south of the Delta also will receive 100% of their contract supply of 422,000 acre feet.
The Friant Division – which delivers water from Millerton Lake to the Madera Canal and Friant-Kern Canal – will receive 20% of its initial allocation for “class one” contractors, and nothing for its “class two” contractors.
Combining those two percentages, the Friant Water Authority will receive just 7% of its total Friant Division contract amount, said Johnny Amaral, a spokesman for the authority.
The Bureau of Reclamation said several south-of-Delta and Friant Division contractors are rescheduling unused water from 2019 into 2020.
“That water is being stored in San Luis Reservoir and Millerton Lake,” the bureau said. “The option to reschedule (carry over) water in San Luis Reservoir and Millerton Lake from one contract year to the next has been available to the water service contractors since the early 1990s.”
Additionally, the Fresno Irrigation District on Friday announced it will postpone the start of its 2020 water deliveries due to “much below-average” Sierra snowpack. The district – which covers over 250,000 acres of farmland and municipal areas, including the cities of Fresno and Clovis – said it wouldn’t make a decision about the start of this year’s agricultural water deliveries until at least mid-March.
‘Pray for rain and snow’
Several groups issued statements Tuesday praising the federal biological opinions, including the Friant Water Authority, which operates the Friant-Kern Canal; the San Luis & Delta-Mendota Water Authority; and the California Farm Water Coalition.
Their consensus: Even less water would have likely been delivered to Valley farmers without them.
Rep. Jim Costa, D-Fresno, issued a statement saying the 15% allocation shows the “continued need for investment in water storage and conveyance infrastructure.”
Friant Water Authority spokesman Amaral was among a group on stage behind Trump during his speech in Bakersfield last week.
The authority cautioned that with the bureau’s low initial water allocation, Valley growers will “need to rely heavily on groundwater supplies, which is likely to further exacerbate the type of regional land elevation subsidence that has so dramatically reduced the capacity of the Friant-Kern Canal.”
“This makes our efforts to repair the facility even more urgent and underscores the need for resolving the valley’s long-term water imbalance.”
Eleven of California’s 21 critically overdrafted groundwater basins are located in the Valley, managed by groundwater sustainability agencies that were required by the state to submit groundwater sustainability plans for the first time last month.
The authority’s statement Tuesday ended with, “Pray for rain and snow.”
This story was originally published February 25, 2020 at 3:13 PM.
