Flood waters cover property along River Rd. in Monterey County, California, as the Salinas River overflows its banks on January 13, 2023.
Noah Berger/AP
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Flood waters cover property along River Rd. in Monterey County, California, as the Salinas River overflows its banks on January 13, 2023.
Noah Berger/AP
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Weeks of historic rainfall in California won’t be enough to end a severe drought, but it will provide public water agencies serving 27 million people with far more water than suppliers had been told to expect for a month long ago officials announced Thursday.
The Department of Water Resources said that the public water agencies will now take 30% of what they had requested, from 5% that they had announced before the officials in December. This is because for the first three weeks of January nine atmospheric rivers dumped about 32 trillion gallons of rain and snow on California. It was enough water to increase storage in the state’s two largest reservoirs by 66%.
“We’re not out of drought in California, but this certainly makes a significant dent,” said Karla Nemeth, director of the California Department of Water Resources.
California pumps water from its major rivers and streams and stores it in a bunch of reservoirs known as the State Water Project. State officials then deliver that water to 29 public agencies that provide the state’s major population centers with drinking water and irrigate 1,151 square miles (2,981 square kilometers) of farmland.
Years of drought have depleted many of those reservoirs to dangerously low levels, forcing significant cuts to water agencies across the state. Many agencies have imposed mandatory restrictions on customers, and Governor Gavin Newsom has called on people and businesses to voluntarily reduce their water use by 15%.
The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which includes major population centers such as Los Angeles and San Diego counties, last month declared a drought emergency for its 19 million customers all. It has imposed mandatory restrictions on 7 million customers, meaning they can only water their lawns one day a week.
Thursday’s announcement did not automatically end those restrictions. Adel Hagekhalil, the district’s general manager, said the extra water “will certainly help the communities most affected by this drought.” But he warned that “Southern California’s water challenges are far from over.”
The district gets about one-third of its water from the State Water Project, one-third from the Colorado River and one-third from other sources. The Colorado River system benefited from the recent storms, but not to the same extent as the California water system. Hagekhalil warned Southern California could “see a significant decline” from the Colorado River starting next year.
Flooding covers South Davis Road near Salinas in Monterey County, California, as the Salinas River overflows its banks on January 13, 2023.
Noah Berger/AP
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Noah Berger/AP
Flooding covers South Davis Road near Salinas in Monterey County, California, as the Salinas River overflows its banks on January 13, 2023.
Noah Berger/AP
“To replenish local storage and reduce reliance on imported supplies, we all need to use water as efficiently as possible,” he said.
The US Drought Monitor said Thursday that severe drought has been downgraded to moderate drought in much of the San Joaquin Valley and the lowest category — abnormal drought — has replaced moderate drought on the central coast. all, including Monterey Bay.
Most of the state, however, remains in moderate or severe drought, with only a fraction on the far north coast completely drought-free.
The worst categories of drought – exceptional and extreme – were eliminated from California earlier this month.
The recent storms have highlighted how difficult it is to manage water in the West, where long periods of drought are often punctuated by intense periods of rain and snow that leave officials scrambling to capture it all before it flows into the water. Pacific Ocean. Environmental regulations limit the amount of water state officials can withdraw from rivers, while ensuring they protect habitat for endangered fish species.
But when strong storms hit, like the ones that hit the state in January, state officials say they are limited more by outdated infrastructure than environmental rules. The State Water Project has been pumping at maximum capacity in recent weeks, releasing water at 9,500 cubic feet per second (269 cubic meters per second). Meanwhile, Nemeth said water is flowing into the ocean at 150,000 cubic feet per second (4,247 cubic meters per second).
California is trying to build seven new water storage projects, paid for in part by a $7.5 billion bond voters approved in 2014. But it took those projects nearly a decade to open amid a lengthy permitting and approval process.
Meanwhile, it has been 17 years since the State Water Project delivered 100% of its water allocation. State officials say part of the problem is climate change that causes more rain to evaporate into the warmer air and seep into drier land instead of flowing into the state’s rivers and streams.
State officials said Thursday they are cautiously optimistic about the rest of this year. California has twice as much snow in the Sierra Nevada compared to its historical average, and Thursday’s water forecast did not include the amount of water it will generate when it melts in the spring.
The intense rain saturated the ground, meaning when the snow melts in the Sierra Nevada this spring, less of the water will be absorbed by the dry land and more of it will flow into the state’s reservoirs.
Still, even with the series of intense rains, it is possible that California’s water year – which runs from October 1 to September 30 – will be average.
“We can have intense dry conditions and intense wet conditions all in the same year,” Nemeth said.
