No, California won't run out of water in a year

1/31

More than 600 empty docks sit on dry, cracked dirt at Folsom Lake Marina, one of the largest inland marinas in California. As the state ended 2014 with no guarantee of significant rain and snow this winter, Californians face the prospect of stricter rationing and meager irrigation deliveries for agriculture.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

2/31

Researcher Blair McLaughlin, left, and Andrew Weitz, right, walk through Blue Oak trees looking for trees affected by the drought near Shandon, Calif.

(Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)

3/31

Passing storm clouds provide the backdrop for an early morning walk on the sand at the Santa Ana River inlet in Newport Beach.

(Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times)

4/31

A crew from Smartgrass Synthetic Turf rolls up a pre-measured piece of artificial grass for installation in the backyard of a home in Pacific Palisades.

(Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)

5/31

Rancher Bill Talbot opens a gate on his family’s leased ranch land near Bishop, Calif. Several ranchers are reducing their herds due to the drought.

(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

6/31

As the California drought grinds into its fourth year, the barren shoreline of Shasta Lake shows the steady drop in water level. The reservoir on the Sacramento River holds about 40% of the federal Central Valley Project’s stored supply.

(Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)

7/31

Cindy Lazaris of the Catalina Island Conservancy walks along cracked earth that used to form the bottom of the Thompson (Middle Ranch) Reservoir, which has shrunk to a level which may cause the city of Avalon to cut its water usage by 50%.

(Bob Chamberlin / Los Angeles Times)

8/31

Los Angeles area residents could be required to cover swimming pools due to the drought.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

9/31

Exposed shoreline shows low water levels at Castaic Lake.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

10/31

From an inspection boat in February 2014, San Gabriel Dam operators Herbert Romero, center, and Jose Aguilar use a measuring tape to determine that the depth of San Gabriel Reservoir near the dam is 50 feet deep. The lingering drought has exposed more than 121 feet of the reservoir’s shoreline. (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)

11/31

Water rings mark receding levels of the Pine Flat Reservoir. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

12/31

Lack of snow in a view from Glacier Point in Yosemite National Park. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

13/31

Severe drought conditions reveal dry-docked boats in a parking lot and over 600 empty docks sitting on dry, cracked dirt at Folsom Lake Marina, which is one of the largest inland marinas in California. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

14/31

Sunset’s glow illuminates the skyline and receding water due to severe drought conditions at Folsom Lake State Recreational Area. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

15/31

The effects of California’s ongoing drought are evident in the dry, cracked banks leftover from dropping water levels at Diamond Valley Lake in Hemet. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

16/31

Sunrise highlights patterns of sand that remain after the water receded at the drought-stricken Pine Flat Reservoir. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

17/31

The surrounding land is testimony to the effects of drought on the depleted Pine Flat Reservoir. (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

18/31

Irrihgation water floods the floor of a date palm grove in the Coachella Valley. The Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians’ court battle with two water agencies is one of several legal disputes over water that are being fought across California. (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)

19/31

CKen Gray of the Coachella Valley Water District kneels at a flume at one of many basins at the Thomas E. Levy Groundwater Replenishment Facility. (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)

20/31

Earthen patterns are left behind from the receding waters of the drought-stricken Pine Flat Reservoir. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

21/31

In July 2014, marina owner Elaine Newton walks with her daughter Ashleigh Newton along docks and boat ramps that are now idle at Huntington Lake due to historically low water levels caused by the drought. (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times)

22/31

Patchy snow is all that’s on the ground at Glacier Point in Yosemite National Park in January. The snow is normally much deeper at that time of year. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

23/31

In January 2014, cattle rancher Rob Frost surveys the remains of an animal that died due to drought conditions on grazing land near Santa Paula, where the grass is normally 6 to 10 inches high this time of year. Frost says in an ordinary year he will lose 1% of his cattle to natural causes but he is now losing nearly 10%. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)

24/31

President Obama visits Los Banos, Calif., in February 2014 to see drought conditions. (Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)

25/31

A lone fisherman waiting for a bite paces across a large portion of dry lake bed due to severe drought conditions at Folsom Lake. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

26/31

At drought-stricken Pine Flat Reservoir in October 2014, patterns are revealed by receding waters. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

27/31

Sunrise in October 2014 highlights patterns of sand amid puddles that remain at drought-stricken Pine Flat Reservoir in Sanger, Calif. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

28/31

City of Santa Barbara public works department intern Devon Schmidt steps along the shoreline in February after checking the intake weir for the city’s desalination plant. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

29/31

In October 2014, rancher Jon Pedotti walks on the parched, cracked lake bed of his 1,561-acre ranch along San Simeon Creek in the Santa Lucia Mountain foothills of Cambria. Of the lake, which fed water to his 280 cattle, he said: “It’s never been this dry.” (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)

30/31

A dead lawn in Parkwood, Calif., in September 2014 after a well failed and the town had to import water. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

31/31

Muddy water gushes out of a newly drilled well in July 2014 serving a farm in Terra Bella, Calif. (Bob Chamberlin / Los Angeles Times)

By Tony BarbozaStaff Writer

March 20, 2015 5:05 AM PT

Lawmakers are proposing emergency legislation, state officials are clamping down on watering lawns and, as California enters a fourth year of drought, some are worried that the state could run out of water.

State water managers and other experts said Thursday that California is in no danger of running out of water in the next two years, even after an extremely dry January and paltry snowpack. Reservoirs will be replenished by additional snow and rainfall between now and the next rainy season, they said. The state can also draw from other sources, including groundwater supplies, while imposing tougher conservation measures.

“We have been in multiyear droughts and extended dry periods a number of times in the past, and we will be in the future,” said Ted Thomas, a spokesman for the California Department of Water Resources. “In periods like this there will be shortages, of course, but the state as a whole is not going to run dry in a year or two years.”

The headline of a recent Times op-ed article offered a blunt assessment of the situation: “California has about one year of water left. Will you ration now?”

Jay Famiglietti, senior water scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and a professor at UC Irvine, wrote about the state’s dwindling water resources in a March 12 column, citing satellite data that have shown sharp declines since 2011 in the total amount of water in snow, rivers, reservoirs, soil and groundwater in California.

In an interview Thursday, Famiglietti said he never claimed that California has only a year of total water supply left.

He explained that the state’s reservoirs have only about a one-year supply of water remaining. Reservoirs provide only a portion of the water used in California and are designed to store only a few years’ supply. But the online headline generated great interest. Famiglietti said it gave some the false impression that California is at risk of exhausting its water supplies.

The satellite data he cited, which measure a wide variety of water resources, show “we are way worse off this year than last year,” he said. “But we’re not going to run out of water in 2016,” because decades worth of groundwater remain.

Still, the state’s abysmal snowpack and below-average reservoir levels could exacerbate the overpumping of already depleted groundwater reserves — a problem detailed in an in-depth Los Angeles Times article Wednesday.

There’s little debate that the state’s water situation is troubling, but there is some improvement from last year. Water levels in some of the state’s largest reservoirs in Northern California are higher than last year at this time, largely because of big December storms. But some smaller Southern California reservoirs aren’t doing so well and have lower reserves than a year ago.

The Department of Water Resources did not have a readily available estimate of the total water supply in California or the amount expected to be used over the next year.

Just because California is not exhausting its water supply “doesn’t mean we’re not in a crisis,” said Leon Szeptycki, executive director of the Water in the West program at Stanford University, who called the state’s snowpack, at 12% of average, “both bad for this year but also a troubling sign for the future.”

State officials said stricter conservation measures, including watering restrictions for cities and big cuts in water deliveries to San Joaquin Valley farmers, will help reduce the drain on reservoirs.

Madelyn Glickfeld, director of the UCLA Water Resources Group at the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, said the drought is so serious that stricter conservation measures are urgently needed. “But I’m confident California’s government will not let this get to the point where water is not coming out of peoples’ faucets.”

tony.barboza@latimes.com

Twitter: @tonybarboza

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