{"id":5768,"date":"2010-04-30T19:28:28","date_gmt":"2010-05-01T02:28:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/?p=5768"},"modified":"2010-04-30T19:28:28","modified_gmt":"2010-05-01T02:28:28","slug":"playing-the-state-water-lottery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/2010\/04\/30\/playing-the-state-water-lottery\/","title":{"rendered":"Playing the State Water Lottery"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Craig
Photo: Craig Miller<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I don’t know Mark Cowin, the director of the state’s Department of Water Resources<\/a>. I haven’t even met the man, in person. But after listening to and reading his pronouncements about the state’s water supply, I’d guess he’s a guy who would barely crack a smile if he found himself holding a winning lottery ticket. I hazard that opinion because even after today’s great news<\/a> about the Sierra snowpack–which is a little like finding out the state has won its annual water lottery–what Cowin emphasizes is that California isn’t out of the woods after the dry spell of 2007-2009. But more about that to follow. First, the details on the DWR’s final Sierra snow survey.<\/p>\n

DWR announced on Friday that statewide, the water content stored in the Sierra snow is at 143% of normal for the date; 188% in the northern Sierra, 121% in the central mountains, and 139% in the southern reaches of the range. Up and down the Sierra, those figures are more than double the levels of the past two years, and are up to seven times as much as surveyors found in the bone-dry spring of 2007.<\/p>\n

Last week, the Department announced it would increase allocations from the State Water Project to 30% of the amount requested from 29 urban and agricultural customers. Today’s snowpack news prompted the department to say that it’s likely to increase deliveries. How much? “Only marginally,” Cowin said in a phone interview this afternoon. “We’ll have to run the numbers, and we’ll probably make that determination in the next week or two.”<\/p>\n

How much water will State Water Project customers get, eventually? Let’s run some numbers of our own.<\/p>\n

The main reason the department cites for the very tight supply in the midst of a year of “normal” precipitation is the continuing below-average levels at California’s biggest state-owned reservoir, Lake Oroville. As of Friday afternoon, the lake is at 72% of normal for the date and about 60% full. But the stats that Cowin’s water geeks are crunching aren’t about the level today, but where they guess it will be as runoff begins to pour from the snow-blanketed mountains through the Feather River watershed into Lake Oroville. DWR officials have insisted that it believes runoff will be held down because of dry conditions caused by the last three drought years. You wonder if they’ll still believe that after assessing the impact of an unusually wet April and its impact on the snowpack.<\/p>\n

While pondering that, here are some other numbers to consider if you want to play what I’ll call the State Water Project Allocation Game:<\/p>\n