Reservoirs’ Level Is Reminder of Drought’s Grip on State

By early fall the reservoirs that feed California’s two giant water projects will drop to near-record low levels, increasing the likelihood that another year of drought will bring economic pain and inconvenience to most of the state.

After six years of below-normal rainfall in Northern California, water storage in the federal Central Valley Project is projected to fall to the lowest levels since 1977, while storage in the State Water Project is expected to be just slightly above the worst year of the ongoing drought.

“By this fall, California’s two big water systems . . . will have only minimal reserves left for next year,” state Department of Water Resources officials said in a recent report on water supply conditions.

In fact, one Central Valley Project reservoir, New Melones on the Stanislaus River, will drop to only 1% of capacity, turning what was once a lake into a mammoth dry hole with a small pool of water at its lowest end.

The condition of the reservoirs is a graphic reminder that California is still gripped by the longest-running drought in half a century. Although Southern California was blessed with rainfall this year that reached 113% of average, Northern California, which supplies most of Southern California’s drinking water, received rainfall and runoff that was significantly below normal.

But the low levels in the reservoirs are not only the result of drought. They also reflect a decision by state and federal bureaucrats to reduce storage so that more water could be supplied to thirsty cities and farms, a move that some critics say could have a serious impact on the environment and economy if there is another dry year.

Continued drought this winter, federal officials say, will hurt farmers served by the federal water project the most, particularly those who cultivate about 1 million acres in the western Sacramento and western San Joaquin valleys. Those farmers have been forced for the second year in a row to cope with a 75% reduction in water deliveries and they are virtually assured of continued cutbacks next year unless rainfall is plentiful.

“We’re in a very, very serious condition,” said Jeff McCracken, public affairs director for the U. S. Bureau of Reclamation, which operates the Central Valley Project.

Urban Southern California, which gets some water from the state project but has backup sources of supply, will fare better and may not be threatened with mandatory rationing. However, if there is no relief from the drought next year, residents face the possibility of higher water rates.

Carl Boronkay, general manager of the Metropolitan Water District, the wholesaler that supplies districts throughout Southern California, said his agency is preparing to buy additional water from Northern California farmers who have surpluses as a hedge against a reduction in deliveries from the State Water Project. The MWD also expects to receive a normal supply of water from its other major source, the Colorado River Aqueduct, Boronkay said.

He said storage within the district is high--in part because of the plentiful rainfall in Southern California this winter--and it can easily ride out the rest of the calendar year with supplies on hand. The crunch would come, he said, if the state went through February or March without significant rainfall.

“If we can avoid rationing, we will,” he said. “I think the odds are we will avoid rationing, but I have to say I can’t rule it out.”

Boronkay said that another dry year would require the district to spend millions of dollars to purchase and transport additional supplies, even if there is no rationing. He said a rate increase would eventually be required to cover the extra costs. “It has to come out of somewhere and (the expenditures) would probably have to be made up in the very next year,” he said.

Environmentalists say another dry year would have a severe impact on the state’s ecology, especially on fish and wildlife that are endangered. They say state and federal officials have increased the potential for crisis by allowing the reservoirs to fall so low.

“That kind of planning is a prescription for disaster in the (Sacramento-San Joaquin River) Delta and the (San Francisco) Bay,” said David Behar, executive director of the Bay Institute of San Francisco. “It is poor water management throughout the drought that has resulted in a crash in the health of the ecosystem and a severe decline in water quality.”

Because so much water was taken out of the reservoirs this year, he said, there was not enough to release in the Upper Sacramento River to provide continued protection for the eggs of endangered winter-run salmon. Biologists say the eggs die in temperatures above 57 degrees, and the Central Valley Project is required to release cold water from Shasta Lake at certain times of the year to keep river temperatures sufficiently low.

A federal official said extra water was kept in Shasta Lake for the salmon, but for unexplained reasons the reservoir was not as cold this year as it had been.

Patrick Porgans, a consultant for farmers in the delta and some environmental groups, said if less water had been delivered for irrigation and urban use, there would have been more available for release when needed to prevent saltwater intrusion from San Francisco Bay into the delta. Instead, he said, intrusion has been allowed to occur and water quality standards designed to protect fish and wildlife repeatedly have been violated.

McCracken of the Bureau of Reclamation said the federal project operators attempted to comply with all environmental standards. But he acknowledged that water quality standards were sometimes not met in order to fulfill obligations to cities and farms.

California Resources Secretary Douglas Wheeler said state officials decided to deliver more water this year because they believed that a state water bank could provide additional supplies if the project is forced to cut back on deliveries. The water bank buys water from farmers who have a surplus and sells it to cities and farms that have shortages.

He said conservation efforts have also proved so successful that officials know that demand can be reduced dramatically in times of shortage.

Wheeler and McCracken argued that if reservoirs are kept too high, they run the risk of spilling over if the next year turns out to be wet.

“Obviously, anybody can sit on top of a mountain and second-guess and say we should have done things differently,” McCracken said. “But then here comes winter again, and how do you project how much it is going to rain?”

Although the odds favor a rainy winter in 1992-93, Boronkay and Wheeler say they have stopped depending on the odds.

“I’ve heard each of these last five years that next year is going to be real wet,” Boronkay said. “I’ve stopped believing it.”

State officials said runoff next year must be at least 75% of average to meet most of the state’s water needs. To refill most of the reservoirs, they say runoff must be at least 110% of average. Historically, runoff has been more than 75% of average in six of every 10 years. It has been 110% of average in only three of every 10 years.

Declining Water Storage in California

Here are the water-level measurements for all state reservoirs taken on Sept. 30 in each year of the current drought: IN STATE RESERVOIRS

YEAR ACRE-FEET* 1987 2.423 million 1988 1.928 million 1989 2.555 million 1990 1.263 million 1991 1.784 million 1992** 1.569 million

IN FEDERAL RESERVOIRS

YEAR ACRE-FEET* 1987 6.3 million 1988 4.6 million 1989 5.1 million 1990 4.0 million 1991 3.2 million 1992** 3.0 million

* An acre-foot is the amount of irrigation water that would cover one acre to a depth of one foot. It is roughly the amount used by a Los Angeles family of five in an 18-month period.

** estimated

SOURCES: Drought Information Center, U. S. Bureau of Reclamation