Despite storms, water supply this year could be like last year
By: Mike Taugher

Last year, water agencies across California resorted to rationing, fallowing crops and tapping reserves to endure the third year of drought, and that could continue despite recent storms.

In fact, customers of the state's largest water project could get less Delta water this year — even if snow and rainfall return to average, new state figures show.

"It's got to get really wet to get close to where we were last year, and last year was a dry year," said Jerry Johns, deputy director of the state Department of Water Resources.

The numbers are contained in the state's latest report on the reliability of the State Water Project and state water officials' forecast for water supplies in 2010.

The numbers confirm what water experts have been saying for more than a year — new regulations to prevent extinction of fish will have far greater impact in the future than they had during last year's drought.

Supply problems last year were due to the weather, but new restrictions on use mean that the wetter the weather in future years, the more water will go to the environment.

If this year turns out to be average — and right now snow and rain totals are slightly above average — state customers could get less than 40 percent of their contract amounts, which is what they received last year. That's because of low reservoir levels and environmental protections now in effect.

Without new restrictions to protect Delta smelt and salmon, they would get twice as much, according to the department. The endangered species regulations were put in place after a federal judge threw out earlier permits, called biological opinions, in 2007 as the Delta's environmental collapse came to a head and fish spiraled toward extinction.

In an average year, and assuming normal storage levels, the restrictions will have the effect of cutting water deliveries by about one-fourth, according to the latest biannual reliability report.

The affected customers include Zone 7 in the Tri-Valley Area and the main water agencies serving Silicon Valley, Kern County and Southern California. The reliability report, which must be completed every two years as the result of a legal settlement with environmentalists, has revealed a steady decline in the amount of water the State Water Project can reliably deliver from the Delta.

Because of environmental constraints, varied weather and the amount of water that can be stored, the project now can deliver about 60 percent of the amount in contracts in an average year, according to the report.

The State Water Project was never fully built, and California has generally awarded far more contractual rights to water users than there is water available.

Environmentalists for years have argued that the state project's contracts are inflated and that developers and farmers therefore were likely to plant crops or build subdivisions based on unrealistic supply assumptions.

They also argue the state gets only so much water from rain and snowfall, and building more dams will not help.

"This demonstrates that California needs to increase water recycling, conservation and groundwater cleanup to offset the impacts of climate change on our water supply," said Jonas Minton, a water policy analyst at the Planning and Conservation League. "More dams would not create new supplies when there is less water falling on California."