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The California Department of Water Resources announced Friday that allocations from the State Water Project are increasing for the coming summer months.
DWR officials said the new allocation amounts are 45% of requested supplies, up from the previous allocation of 30% announced in January.
The State Water Project, one of two backbone water storage and delivery systems in California, provides supplies to 29 public water agencies serving 27 million people and 750,000 acres of farmland.
The allocations are set using information about current hydrological conditions, existing reservoir storage levels and remaining snowpack.
Currently all of the state’s major reservoirs are at or above historical averages for this time of year, including lakes Oroville and Folsom, which are full, and Shasta, which is nearly so, according to the most recent DWR water storage data.
Conversely, the statewide snowpack level is only 12% of normal for this date, with the all-important northern Sierra Nevada coming in at just 6% of normal, according to DWR data from Friday.
“California’s reservoirs are full, but most snowpack melted off weeks ago. We must use this stored water carefully because there’s no backfill until next season,” said DWR Director Karla Nemeth.
The state has been experiencing what water managers refer to as “weather whiplash” this year, with record heat in March and an early snowmelt, contrasted by consistent rainstorms in April, which provided “critical runoff that allowed DWR to capture more water and meet environmental regulations without using stored water,” DWR officials said in a news release Friday.
State officials said water managers at Lake Oroville worked with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to capture as much water as possible while still providing flood protection downstream. This resulted in an additional 400,000 acre-feet of storage in Oroville, the state’s largest reservoir.
The healthy storage amounts put the state “in a better position to provide water supply to contractors this year while maintaining robust carryover storage to meet water supply and environmental needs should next year be dry,” according to DWR officials.
This season, the initial water allocation was 10% on Dec. 1, 2025, updated to 30% on Jan. 29 and increased to 45% Friday.
— Story by Kiley Russell, Bay City News
