Feds Reduce Water Allocation For California

The US Bureau of Reclamation says most farmers south of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta will face a second year with no water from the Central Valley Project.

Ron Milligan is Operations Manager for the CVP. He says low reservoir storage is only part of the reason for the “zero allocation”.

“We’ve accumulated probably less than average snow for the month of February so we anticipate unfortunately the March 1 snow surveys are going to be probably even less fruitful then they were in February,” says Milligan.

Daniel Errotabere farms 36-hundred acres near the Fresno County town of Huron.

“We’re going to be fallowing a lot of land, about 1200 of that. We’re going to be pumping groundwater and just try to get through," he says. "The problem is I don’t have the ability, a lot of folks think that, you know, if you have a farm you would just fallow, I can’t fallow the whole ranch. Financially that’s not possible.”

Some farmers with more senior water rights will receive 75-percent of their requested amounts, including the San Joaquin River Exchange Contractors and those in the Sacramento Valley.  

Municipal and industrial users will receive enough water to meet health and safety needs or 25 percent of their historic use, whichever is greater.

The city of Roseville will likely receive about a-quarter of its typical water allocation from Folsom Lake this year.

The city's water comes from the lake and from underground aquifers -which can be tapped during a drought.

Roseville is scheduled to bring two new groundwater wells online Saturday.  

Each will pump about 1800 gallons of water per minute.

Despite the drought, Roseville says its groundwater basin has actually risen 20-feet in the last ten years.  

Under Roseville's water conservation program water use is down 20-percent from 2014.