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Average rain year won’t cut it; still, Sacramento area will fare better than most

Posted by: Aqua Blog Maven on October 5, 2008 at 6:33 am

From the Sacramento Business Journal:

California’s new water year started Wednesday with sunny skies and Folsom Lake storage at about half of average for this time of year.

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation — which manages Folsom, Shasta, Oroville and other reservoirs in the Central Valley Project — classified the water year that ended Tuesday as “critically dry.” It cut back water allowances for municipal and industrial customers with Central Valley Project contracts by 25 percent and irrigation customers by 60 percent.

If Northern California receives average precipitation this winter, the Bureau of Reclamation might be able to provide full contract allocations next year, said Paul Fujitani, chief of water operations in the Bureau’s Central Valley operations office. But if it’s another dry year, water utilities and irrigation districts could face more cutbacks next summer.

“Folsom Reservoir, luckily for us, is one of the easier reservoirs to fill in the Central Valley Project,” Fujitani said. “If we get average (precipitation) this year, that would give us a real good chance of filling up the reservoir.”

Managers of some Sacramento-area water agencies that issued voluntary calls for conservation said they will probably keep those alerts in place for at least the next few months. They want to give the lake a chance to fill if there’s any rain.

But if Folsom fills up and the other reservoirs remain critically low, water contractors in the Sacramento region might still experience cutbacks. The bureau’s allocations apply to all Central Valley contractors, even if there’s more water in one area than another. “An average year won’t solve our problems,” said Shauna Lorance, general manager of San Juan Water District. “We need a very wet year, or several average years in a row.”

Read more from the Sacramento Business Journal by clicking here.

October 5, 2008 · Filed Under Sacramento, Water Supply

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