California drought gets from bad to worse as officials reveal that beginning this spring, they will not send water from the state's reservoir to local agencies that supply to millions of residents.
The State Water Project, which delivers water to California, announced for the first time in 54 years that it will not allot water to millions of people and 1 million acres of farmland. On Friday, January 31, officials said that they will have to stop water releases from the State Water Project's 34 storage facilities, reservoirs and lakes this spring.
Officials said that the large reservoirs in North California will preserve supplies in one of the worst droughts recorded in modern history of California.
"This is the most serious drought we've faced in modern times," said Felicia Marcus, chairwoman of the State Water Resources Control Board. "We need to conserve what little we have to use later in the year, or even in future years."
The allotment of water will be reviewed on a month-to-month basis. The amount of available water may also increase if the weather pattern changes and brings more snow and rain in the state.
The recent announcement does not mean that farms in the state will go dry and taps will go without water this summer. However, every region in California will have to rely on other sources of water to keep up with the demand during the drought. There are 29 agencies that use the state's water delivery system. These agencies also have regional reservoirs and stores of groundwater.
Farmers in the state's most productive agricultural region California's Central Valley draw water from a separate system of federally run reservoirs and canals. However, the system will also deliver just a fraction of its normal water allotment due to the drought this year.
The Department of Water Resources says that California has been building on the drought for the last three years as the state received below than normal rain and snow. The state will now have to experience heavy rain and snowfall frequently from now until May to overcome the drought and get itself back to the average annual precipitation totals.
California's drought this year has reached a new milestone as the U.S. Drought Monitor showed that calamity now covers around 9 percent of the state.
The drought extends from north to south across 11 counties including cities such as American Canyon, Benicia, Calistoga, Dublin, Fremont, Livermore, Napa, Newark, Pleasanton, San Ramon and many more.
