Thursday April 25, 2024
Los Angeles Times —
With runoff from this year’s snow and rain boosting the levels of California’s reservoirs, state water managers on Tuesday announced plans to increase deliveries of supplies from the State Water Project to 40% of full allotments, up from 30% last month.
The increased allocation, which had been widely expected, means that suppliers serving 27 million Californians, as well as some farming areas, will have substantially more water available to use and store this year. But the Department of Water Resources also said officials have had to limit pumping from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta this year because of environmental protections for native fish.
Although this year has brought average wet conditions, the agency said its ability to move water south through the system of aqueducts and reservoirs has been “impacted by the presence of threatened and endangered fish species” near the state’s pumping facilities in the south delta.