The California Department of Water Resources (DWR) has granted only 5% of the requested water allocations to agencies throughout the state, amid concerns about a hot summer and a possible return of drought in a dry winter.
The past two winters provided ample rain and snow to the state, resulting in an 100% allocation in 2023, and the reemergence of historic Tulare Lake in the heart of the Central Valley. But summer heat waves and predictions of a dry La Niña atmospheric winter suggest that rainfall could be low in the next few months, and drought could return.
The DWR said in a statement Monday:
Today, the Department of Water Resources (DWR) announced an initial State Water Project (SWP) allocation forecast of five percent of requested supplies for 2025. The SWP provides water to 29 public water agencies that serve 27 million Californians.
The December initial water supply forecast is the first allocation of the new water year and is based on current reservoir storage and conservative assumptions for precipitation to come. For comparison, last year, the initial allocation for Water Year 2024 was 10 percent of requested supplies and it eventually increased to 40 percent by the end of the season.
The initial allocation forecast announced today does not take into account the series of strong storms that brought precipitation to above average across Northern California in the last two weeks of November. These storms will be taken into account along with other variables for future allocation updates. Prior to these storms, the start of the water year had been dry and warm.
Critics of California’s water management policies argue that the state’s periodic droughts are “man-made,” in that water scarcity could be avoided through increased water storage and desalination, and the prioritization of farm and household use over flushing fresh water out to sea to maintain river depths and preserve endangered fish species.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days, available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
