In a minor bright spot after more than a year of drought, state and federal officials announced Friday that because of March storms, they will be able to deliver slightly more water to California farms and cities this year than expected a few months ago.
Farms and cities will receive 5 percent of their contracted amounts from the State Water Project — up from nothing in January.
But that boost, about 200,000 acre-feet of water, or enough for 1 million people for a year, is still the lowest delivered in the 54-year history of the State Water Project, a vast system of canals, pumps and dams that serves as a linchpin of California’s water supply.
The extra water will not be available until Sept. 1, and even then, it won’t be enough to alleviate conservation rules that many cities are already putting in place, said Mark Cowin, director of the State Department of Water Resources. Nor will it end the desperate conditions farmers are facing across hundreds of thousands of acres in the Central Valley.
“This is a small bit of good news in an otherwise very bleak water year,” he said.
Cowin conceded, however: “I don’t expect this to make a tremendous amount of difference to Californians.”
The extra water will have some benefits:
The March rains also brought another change. State officials said Friday they intend to drop a $30 million plan to build rock barriers across three parts of the Delta in an emergency attempt to keep salty San Francisco Bay water from moving too far eastward and potentially fouling drinking water supplies.
The extra rain will allow officials instead to release more water from Shasta, Oroville and other large dams in Northern California south to the Delta, to push back the salt water.
Despite the spring rains, 95 percent of California remains in a “severe drought,” according to a report Thursday from the U.S. Drought Monitor, a weekly update from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
California saw less rainfall in 2013 than in any year since it became a state in 1850. The Sierra snowpack — an important water supply — was so far behind that, despite the March storms, it only increased to 35 percent of its historic average by early April.
Now, after temperatures in the past few weeks averaged 9 to 12 degrees above normal, much of that new March snow has already melted. The Sierra snowpack stood at just 21 percent on Friday.
And fire risk is growing.
“With temperatures back on the rise, so is the potential for large wildfires,” said Chief Ken Pimlott, director of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire.
On Monday, Cal Fire announced it is hiring 100 additional seasonal firefighters in Northern California. The firefighters were hired several months earlier than in most years and will be placed in stations in Santa Clara, Alameda, Contra Costa, San Mateo, Santa Cruz, Shasta, Trinity, Tehama, Glenn and Butte counties. On March 31, Cal Fire similarly boosted staffing in other Bay Area counties and the Sacramento foothills.
Meanwhile, federal officials said Friday that they will be able to deliver slightly more water through the Central Valley Project, most notably to senior rights holders in the Sacramento Valley, mostly farmers, to 75 percent of contracted amounts, up from 40 percent. But cities that receive the federal water will remain at 50 percent, and farmers with junior rights still will get none.
Friday’s announcements mean no change in supply for the Contra Costa Water District, where 500,000 customers are being asked to voluntarily cut water use 15 percent. The news did not provide enough new water for the Santa Clara Valley Water District to increase the amount it can supply cities in Silicon Valley, which is currently at 80 percent of contracted amounts.
And it did not affect the East Bay Municipal Utility District. EBMUD’s board is scheduled Tuesday to decide whether to increase the 10 percent voluntary conservation program already in place for its 1.3 million customers in Contra Costa and Alameda counties.
“It helps a little but probably not enough,” said Jill Duerig, general manager of the Zone 7 Water Agency in Livermore, which receives 80 percent of its supply from the State Water Project and plans to cut deliveries 25 percent this summer to 200,000 people in Livermore, Pleasanton, Dublin and San Ramon.
Staff writers Denis Cuff and Paul Burgarino contributed to this report. Paul Rogers covers resources and environmental issues. Contact him at 408-920-5045. Follow him at Twitter.com/paulrogerssjmn.
