SACRAMENTO, California — Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration launched a planning effort Wednesday to identify enough new water to fill up two Shasta Reservoirs, or 9 million acre-feet, by 2040 to offset expected losses to climate change.
What happened: The 2028 Water Plan, a result of last year’s SB 72, will lay out a blueprint for new reservoirs, groundwater recharge and conservation projects.
“Climate change is reshaping life in California through historic droughts and record storms that threaten the farms that feed the nation, communities that depend on reliable water, and the environment we all share,” Newsom said in a statement. He added that the 2028 Water Plan is “a commitment to every Californian that we will capture, store, and conserve the water our state and the 4th largest economy in the world needs to thrive.”
Why this matters: Water has long been a cudgel for Republicans against California Democrats, and Newsom has spent years trying to blunt it by boosting Central Valley supplies and easing some environmental rules. His administration has previously determined that California could lose up to 10 percent of its water supplies by 2040 because of hotter and drier conditions from climate change.
