Meager Snowpack Forces Drought Watch

The state declared a drought watch Monday after a meager winter Sierra snowpack left California’s water supply with a precariously thin margin for error.

The declaration will have no immediate effect on water deliveries but puts users on notice that another critically dry year would plunge the state into a full-fledged drought emergency.

Resources Secretary Douglas P. Wheeler made the announcement at Echo Summit near Lake Tahoe as the state’s snow survey team began its final assessment of the Sierra snowpack.

Only seven years in this century have produced less runoff from mountain snowfall than this year’s forecast for the Sacramento River Basin, through which much of the state’s water flows. As of March, the snowpack was barely more than 40% of average.

“This year was dismal,” said Anita Garcia-Fante, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Water Resources. “We’re very concerned.”

This year’s runoff into the Sacramento, Feather, Yuba and American rivers is expected to total 8.5 million acre-feet, less than half the annual average. (One acre-foot is enough water to supply a family of five for a year.)

By comparison, 1993’s snowfall produced 22.5 million acre-feet of runoff. The heavy precipitation ended six years of drought and filled the state’s reservoirs.

As of April 25, the state’s 155 major reservoirs averaged 90% of capacity. But as the dry months stretch on, that stored water will be depleted, and the state expects the reservoirs to be down to an average of 70% by the fall.

Garcia-Fante said individual California water users probably will not face rationing this summer. However, the state and federal projects that ship water to agricultural irrigation districts in the Central Valley will be cutting back. Some districts, she said, will receive just 35% of their normal deliveries.

The state is exploring the possibility of mobilizing a water bank, through which districts that have more than enough water can sell their surplus to areas that need it.

“We’re asking Californians to do everything they can to conserve,” Garcia-Fante said.