Record-Low Water Allocations for Farms

Photo by Sasha Khokha
Deceptively soggy fields in Fresno County. Photo by Sasha Khokha

This morning’s news for Central Valley farmers was bad–but not unexpected: record low allocations of water from state and federal irrigation systems, just as growers make their spring planting decisions.

There are two major plumbing systems that supply water for Valley farms. This morning, the federal Bureau of Reclamation said the best-case scenario will be that ag customers of its Central Valley Project get 10% of their requested water this year. Zero is more likely for most, especially if the current season’s weather patterns persist. The previous low for CVP allocations was 25% in the early 1990s.

Also today, the California Department of Water Resources confirmed its earlier estimate of 15% allocations for farms served by the State Water Project.

The recent string of rainy days has left fields soggy but failed to make a dent in the current drought. Elissa Lynn, Senior Meteorologist for the state Department of Water Resources says we’d need four or five more big storms by April to bring the state’s precipitation levels up to normal.

It’s unlikely it will keep raining hard enough, for long enough, to bring California out of a drought.

And that means more fighting over the state’s water supply. Especially when it comes to the massive state and federal plumbing projects that pipe water from northern California to make arid Central Valley fields bloom.

Not only is there less water in the state’s reservoirs, but there are restrictions on pumping it because of legal decisions to protect the endangered delta smelt.

On The California Report this morning, we visited with a Fresno County tomato farmer, to find out how he’s coping. If you missed it, that radio story will be posted here sometime today.

For more on the drought, explore Climate Watch’s newest resource, California’s Water. Visit this page for access to KQED’s drought coverage, data and reports from the Department of Water Resources and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and California water news from across the Web.

Record-Low Water Allocations for Farms 19 February,2009Sasha Khokha

2 thoughts on “Record-Low Water Allocations for Farms”

  1. There was a very striking quote in your piece: “They handed out water rights like they were handing out Wall St. bonuses”. I don’t think that’s quite right though. Bonuses are a distribution of actual earnings – whether its a fair distribution or not. Water rights are more like a line of credit – which offers the promise of being able to borrow more into the future, whether the bank has money or not.

    Of course, unlimited promises of a ‘right’ to water make no more sense than unlimited promises of credit. And, like the financial crisis, the water crisis is going to impose some discipline on us whether we like it or not.

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Author

Sasha Khokha

Sasha Khokha is the host of The California Report's  weekly magazine program, which takes listeners on sound-rich excursions to meet the people that make the Golden State unique -- through audio documentaries and long-form  stories. As The California Report's Central Valley Bureau Chief based in Fresno for nearly a dozen years, Sasha brought the lives and concerns of rural Californians to listeners around the state. Her reporting helped expose the hidden price immigrant women janitors and farmworkers may pay to keep their jobs: sexual assault at work. It inspired two new California laws to protect them from sexual harassment.  She was a key member of the reporting team for the Frontline film Rape on the Night Shift, which was nominated for two national Emmys. Sasha has also won a national Edward R. Murrow and a national PRNDI award for investigative reporting, as well as multiple prizes from the Society for Professional Journalists. Sasha is a proud alum of the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism and Brown University and a member of the South Asian Journalists Association.

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