Water Deliveries Increase, Reflecting Wet Winter

CALIFORNIA — Water agencies up and down California will be getting larger allocations from the state and federal delivery systems this year, water managers announced this week.

On Tuesday, the California Department of Water Resources announced it would be increasing deliveries to 50 percent of requested supplies from the State Water Project — that's up from 40 percent in March.

Also, officials with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation announced that deliveries to irrigation systems and other water contractors south of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta are being increased from 40 percent of requested supplies to 50 percent.

Meanwhile, farms north of the Delta, and within the Delta itself, will receive 100 percent of their requested supplies from the federal Central Valley Project.

The increased deliveries were announced on the heels of a relatively wet rainy season that resulted in 100 percent of the historical average for precipitation statewide, according to data from DWR.

Currently, nearly all of the state's major reservoirs are at or above historical averages, including Butte County's Lake Oroville, which is at 120 percent of average for this date and 95 percent full, and San Luis Reservoir in Merced County, a critical reservoir for Southern California water, which is at 101 percent of average and 83 percent full.

DWR operates the State Water Project, which provides water to 29 public agencies that serve 27 million Californians and 750,000 acres of farmland across the state.

The Bureau of Reclamation operates the Central Valley Project, which delivers irrigation water to 3 million acres of farmland and drinking water to more than 6 million people in the state.

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