On October 29th of 2008, the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) announced that it would be allocating only 15% of the water requested by the communities served by the State Water Project (SWP) in the State California; this represents the second lowest allocation level in over 40 years.
Several factors have contributed to this conservative plan including a prolonged drought in the region, lower than average snowfall, and a court decision to protect a small fish. The California DWR is tasked with taking this all into account and managing the State's fresh water resources; a difficult task even in a wet year.
California, and indeed most of the southwest United States is in the midst of a multi-year drought. Lower than expected rainfall has been recorded for the past 2 years, and that trend is projected to continue in 2009. In fact the pattern of repeated drought is well known to archeologists who study the ancient cultures of the Southwest and to the Native Americans and settlers who lived through such cycles.
To overcome this hurdle, the State of California began to build a system of canals, dams and reservoirs decades ago; this work is ongoing and the DWR is currently the state agency tasked with the maintenance, repair and construction of these facilities. These structures have the effect of 'leveling' the wet and dry cycles, allowing the State to collect and preserve a large percentage of the rainfall and snow melt in the wet years and then use that to sustain the State's water demand during the dry years.
Over the past two decades, California has seen two trends which both contributed to the current low reservoir levels. The first is the increase in population seen by California; over 15 million new citizens came to the state in the past 30 years, almost doubling the population. This growing populace obviously puts a greater demand on the state's water supply, siphoning more water from the reservoirs than planners 50 years ago expected.
The second factor may be more of a surprise; the past 30 years have been fairly wet years and the State of California regularly had 'surplus' water. This bounty was one of the main reasons that California's Central Valley saw such agricultural productivity during these years. Certainly there were dry periods, but on the whole, the State experienced some of its wettest years in the 20th century from 1978 to 1998, the graph below from the University of California at San Diego reinforces this point. The graph also gives some insight into the lag that accompanies the rainfall cycle; for several years at the beginning of a 'dry' period, the groundwater supplies appear to be bountiful. This effect, however, is only temporary and the abundant supply quickly disappears; California appears to be entering this plunge to drought, currently.
Another interesting factor in California's water dilemma is, of all things, a fish. In 2007, a Federal District Court judge protected the delta smelt, citing its declining population and short lifespan as reasons for protection. The delta smelt is a small, silver fish approximately 3-4 inches long; it lives in the San Joaquin-Sacramento River and has a one year lifespan.As it happens, these pumps generate the water pressures which allow the California and South Bay aqueducts to reach their destinations. Because of this court ruling, the State of California lost the ability to deliver approximately 625,000 acre-feet of water to central and southern California.
The State's Governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, has proposed building new dams and channels to avoid the environmental issues associated with the delta smelt and has been caucusing with other governors in the region to reach a common understanding that may help to ease the situation. In the meantime local water managers, faced with reservoirs that are less than half-full, are calling for immediate reductions in use by farmers and households.
If the State's water allocation plan holds at 15%, many fields will sit idle this summer. Of course, a wetter winter or greater than expected snowfall would allow the DWR to upwardly revise their allocation; this happened last year when the DWR initially projected a 25% allocation and then later revised that to 35% after a wet winter. But that isn't a guarantee and the DWR's conservative planning appears to be warranted at this time. Looking forward, however, it appears that the State of California needs a revision to its water plan, one that plans on much less water availability for the next several years.
California's Water Allocation Plan.
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