By Christine Souza, Ag Alert
More signs of drought and tightening water supplies have arisen, in filings with the State Water Resources Control Board.
The board received a request last week from operators of the State Water Project and the federal Central Valley Project, to temporarily modify permits and license conditions for the two projects.
The state water board received a “temporary urgency change petition” filed by the operators of the SWP and the CVP, the California Department of Water Resources and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation.
Justin Fredrickson, environmental policy analyst for the California Farm Bureau, said the petition allows a water district or water purveyor to request a variance from the state water board, which relaxes standards that typically apply in any other year under its water rights Decision 1641. Finalized in 1999, Decision 1641 established rules governing most water quality standards currently in place for the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
Fredrickson said a temporary urgency change order, if granted, would allow modification of rules normally in place on a temporary basis under an urgent circumstance. In the petition, the project operators say critically dry conditions mean there will not be enough water for the projects to meet their obligations under Decision 1641.
Any change allowed by the board as a result of the petition “cannot affect other water right holders or fish and wildlife, and it has to be in the public interest,” Fredrickson explained.
DWR and the Bureau of Reclamation requested changes to outflow requirements for the delta and agricultural water quality requirements on the Sacramento River from June through Aug. 15.
The project operators said the changes are needed to conserve water supplies in upstream reservoirs for later in the year, and to allow them greater operational flexibility in response to the second consecutive year of critically dry conditions.
The deadline to file an objection to the petition is June 4.
In addition, the state water board held a public workshop last week to receive public comment on proposed methodology for determining water unavailability in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta watershed.
Currently, the methodology focuses on evaluating water unavailability for post-1914 appropriative users during the dry season. The board said it plans modifications to the methodology to evaluate water unavailability during the wet season, and said the methods could also be modified to evaluate water unavailability for pre-1914 appropriative and riparian water right claimants at a later time.
Due to critically dry conditions throughout the delta watershed and the projection of insufficient supplies to meet water demands, the water board warned it is likely to issue notices of water unavailability to all post-1914 appropriative water right holders in the delta watershed as early as June.
The SWP and the CVP are responsible for providing salinity control and meeting environmental flows in the delta, as well as specific requirements for flows and temperature management.
Project reservoir storage levels have reached or neared historical lows, creating significant concerns for salinity control, municipal water supplies (particularly from Folsom Reservoir), temperature management and other environmental needs.
Fredrickson said water managers need to control salinity in the delta while protecting public health, water conveyance and beneficial uses of water, including irrigation. He said the project must also protect some carryover water for next year, and use available conveyance to move transferred water “from users in a position to make some available to others in more desperate need.”
“California needs to prepare for the terrible possibility of a potential third dry year next year and, at the same time, continue to meet minimum basic needs during the summer and into the fall,” he said.
