California’s drought endures: Feds’ Central Valley Project announces 0% water for farmers
Farmers in California’s Central Valley are in for another brutal summer of drought.
The federal government announced initial 2022 water allocations Wednesday for customers of the Central Valley Project, and the figures were dismal: Most irrigation districts in the Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys can expect to receive no deliveries from the project’s vast network of reservoirs and canals.
Despite some snowfall this week, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, which runs the project, said weeks of dry weather wiped out many of the gains recorded during the rainy and snowy December. In just the first two weeks of February, major reservoirs such as Shasta, Folsom and Oroville lost 1.2 million acre-feet of expected inflow. An acre-foot is 326,000 gallons.
“Last year was a very bad year; this year could turn out to be worse,” said Ernest Conant, the bureau’s regional director.
Although the allocations could change this spring, continued dry weather makes it unlikely that the thousands of farmers who rely on the Central Valley Project will get meaningful supplies. Last year most farmers received a 0% allocation as well.
The project normally provides water for about 3 million acres of farmland.
While most of the federal water goes to agriculture, some cities rely on the project as well. Most, including those in the Sacramento area that pull water from Folsom Lake, will get a 25% allocation. A few along the Sacramento River, which is in worse shape, willl get enough water to meet “public health and safety needs.” That generally means 55 gallons a day per person, Conant said.
Reclamation’s stark projections were in contrast to the State Water Project, which announced a 15% allocation to its customers in January. The state project has more of an urban base; its largest customer is the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which serves 19 million residents.
The vagaries of California weather have hit the federal project harder. Conant said the December storms contributed relatively little precipitation in the upper Sacramento Valley, which feeds Shasta Lake — the largest reservoir in the federal system. As of Wednesday water levels at Shasta were just 53% of historical average.
That doesn’t mean farmers will go completely without water. Roughly one-third of the project’s agricultural districts are due to get up to 75% of their allotment because of historical water rights that pre-date the construction of the Central Valley Project during the New Deal. Wildlife refuges are also due a 75% allocation.
However, Conant said there’s no guarantee that even those 75% allocations will get delivered, depending on water conditions in the coming months.
Meanwhile, many farmers have access to groundwater supplies, and they will likely run their pumps even as irrigation districts begin planning for long-term cutbacks in groundwater usage in accordance with state law.
Nonetheless, the year is likely to be difficult, and widespread fallowing of row crops is likely. Last year, farmers in the Sacramento Valley idled enough land to cut the rice crop by 20%. In the San Joaquin Valley, some farmers ripped out almond orchards — sacrificing investments worth tens of thousands of dollars — for lack of water.
Westlands Water District, the sprawling farm irrigation agency serving much of the west side of the San Joaquin Valley, said it’s “disappointed with the allocation” for 2022 and said the drought demonstrates the need for California to invest more heavily in new reservoirs and other storage facilities.
Westlands growers had to idle 200,000 acres of land last year, about one third of the district’s total farmland
“It’s devastating to the agricultural economy,” Conan’s said. “Unfortunately, we can’t make it rain.”
This story was originally published February 23, 2022 at 10:05 AM with the headline "California’s drought endures: Feds’ Central Valley Project announces 0% water for farmers."