SACRAMENTO, California — Both California and Trump administration water officials said Tuesday they expected to deliver about 35 percent of the summer water requested by cities and farmers.
Tuesday’s forecast is the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation’s first of the year. State water officials, meanwhile, increased their projected allocation from 20 percent to 35 percent following a series of storms in February that raised snowpack levels in Northern California to slightly above average. The forecast is more than double the estimate at this time last year, which also started out as a dry winter.
Farms, cities and wildlife refuges depend on the water from the federally run Central Valley Project and the state-run State Water Project to irrigate and serve urban and wildlife uses through California’s dry summer and fall. The agencies’ allocations won’t be final until April, but the early forecast is important because farmers use it to help guide crop planting decisions and secure loans. It’s also Reclamation’s first allocation under President Donald Trump and his order to federal agencies last month to “maximize” water deliveries.
Reclamation said it incorporated the precipitation from recent February storms in its forecast. That yielded a higher number than if it incorporated solely data from January and December, which were dry.
