With sporadic showers, we begin to wonder if the drought is over. Dave Hill, our Water Resources & Planning Manager, can tell you from experience it’s not. Not only does he see first-hand the breaking facts and figures relating to our state water levels, but in the past few months, he’s witnessed the local interest in our recycled water program dramatically increase. Here, he provides some insights on the popular question:

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Is California Still in a Drought?

Well, it depends on who you talk to. There are two kinds of drought: the weather kind and the man-made kind.

Let’s discuss the weather kind first. Even with recent rains, dry conditions persist throughout the state. Still, a “drought” has not been formally declared by the California Department of Water Resources (DWR). 2007 was just considered a very, very dry year.

For Southern California, we are off to a very good start. According to the Los Angeles Civic Center we have just over 12 inches of rainfall to date, which puts us at 162% of average for this time of year, and at 80% of average for the entire year. With the traditionally wettest months still ahead, things are looking good.

Now, let’s discuss the man-made kind of drought. Back in August, a federal judge made an important decision about the amount of water agencies can take from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, also known as the California Delta. Because of the rapidly declining population of a small fish, the Delta Smelt, the Judge reduced the amount of water that both the State Water Project and the Central Valley Project can take from the Delta by 2 million acre-feet. Because the Metropolitan Water District is the largest water contractor from the SWP, the Southland will get hit the hardest–losing up to 500,000 AF of water annually! This has the effect of creating a man-made drought for all areas of the state that receive water from the SWP.

This reduction will stay in effect until major improvements are made to the California Delta, which is why you may be hearing a lot about the “peripheral canal” or other, similar projects that will move water around the Delta instead of through it.

So there you have it. As a result of these factors, we are now more susceptible to the whims of weather conditions than ever before. And it’s going to stay that way for many years.

I invite your comments.

Dave Hill

Water Resources & Planning Manager

Central Basin Municipal Water District

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This entry was posted on Friday, February 8th, 2008 at 9:39 am and is filed under Drought Information. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.