WATER POLITICS

Shasta Lake can hold enough water to meet the needs of six million people and one-third of California’s farmland. It also provides water for salmon and other threatened species and helps keep salt water at bay in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, which serves as a hub for statewide water transfers.

Until this century, Shasta successfully did all of that, helping California grow to more than 39 million people and the world’s fifth-largest economy. But a succession of ever-worsening droughts over the past two decades has made inflows into Shasta far less reliable. The current drought is the most severe on record, and Shasta’s water level is now 33% of its capacity.

Federal water managers are now administering painful cuts in allotments to Shasta and other Central Valley Project reservoirs, putting at risk farmland which accounts for a critical part of California’s $50 billion-a-year agriculture industry, disrupting supplies to large cities and small towns, and leaving less for fish. 

“Every aspect of water supply will be impacted, devastating impacts,” said Russell Callejo, deputy regional director of the California-Great Basin region for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation.

Shasta Dam straddles the Sacramento River, which originates in the Mount Shasta area in the far northern part of the state. 

Rain and snow are funneled into the Sacramento and its tributaries, helping to fill a reservoir designed to hold 4.5 million acre-feet. However, recent drought cycles—made worse by climate change, according to scientists—have greatly disrupted the Shasta watershed.

One problem is that forests have been left so parched by the current drought that most rain and melting snow gets soaked up by the ground, said Donald Bader, Northern California area manager for the Bureau of Reclamation. 

With salmon getting highest priority because of federal court mandates, the rest of Shasta’s water is being divided up according to a tiered system of rights based on contracts with the federal government signed decades ago by various stakeholders. 

Near the bottom are farmers 400 miles south in the southern Central Valley and the people who live in those communities. Next up are municipal and industrial users, with the exception of water for public safety and health. The most senior water-rights holders include farmers at the northern end of the Central Valley, some of whose contracts date to the late 19^th century.

Other water uses are affected, as well. Hydropower from the Shasta Dam power plant has been cut in half this year due to reduced allocations to farmers.

Federal officials are taking drastic actions to fulfill a legal mandate to safeguard winter-run Chinook salmon, a threatened species and cultural touchstone for tribes like the Winnemem Wintu. “If the salmon go away, we feel the Winnemem will follow,” said Rick Wilson, tribal dance captain.

Salmon need cold water to spawn, and usually enough is available at the bottom of the lake to send downriver. But with lower, warmer waters this year, giant chillers had to be brought in to cool lake water that was delivered to a salmon hatchery located at the base of the 602-foot dam,  Mr. Bader said.

Some of the most-senior water rights belong to the Glenn-Colusa Irrigation District. Until this year it had never received less than 75% of its federal water, which farmers use primarily for rice.

Last spring, the Bureau of Reclamation coordinated with Glenn-Colusa and other senior irrigators to reduce their water supply to 18%. “We would not have had enough cold water for salmon if we had not cut the rice farmers,” Mr. Bader said.

The amount of rice planted plunged from about 100,000 acres in the district to 1,000.

Colusa County officials estimate the overall economic hit there this year at $2.4 billion.

Junior rights holders got none of their contracted allotment. Many resorted to buying water, at up to five times the normal price, from farmers in districts with senior rights because, unlike rice, permanent crops such as almonds and walnuts can’t be fallowed without dying. 

“Buying water is critical to our survival,” said Halbert Charter, a Colusa County almond farmer who bought water to help keep most of his orchards alive. 

Cities have felt the pinch, too. Shasta water goes to some of the suburbs around Sacramento, which also gets supplies from other Central Valley Project reservoirs including Folsom Lake, now 34% full. 

In San Jose, supplies of Central Valley Project water were cut to 34% for the Santa Clara Valley Water District’s two million customers. The district, which gets half of its water from Shasta and other distant sources, mandated a 15% reduction in use for residents and businesses. It also took the unprecedented step of authorizing fines and other enforcement measures.

“We want to make sure everybody understands we are in one of the most severe droughts in history,” said John L. Varela, the district’s board chair pro tem.

Before the Shasta water can make it to the southern Central Valley, it has to be moved through the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. That’s done through a pumping plant that lifts the water nearly 200 feet into a canal for delivery to farmers and rural communities via the San Luis Reservoir and other facilities.

But the Delta pumping is controversial. Environmental critics say it kills smelt and other threatened fish. A series of federal biological opinions and court orders over the past four decades have greatly reduced the water through the Delta to reservoirs like San Luis.

As a result, southern Central Valley farmers have dramatically increased their reliance on groundwater in years when their federal supplies are shut off. That has resulted in the ground literally shrinking in some communities, a phenomenon known as subsidence.

Farmers’ increased pumping of groundwater has dried up wells for communities in Tulare County, where oranges, grapes and pistachios are among the top crops.

The Westlands Water District, at 614,000 acres the largest agricultural water district in the nation, went from relying on groundwater for less than 10% of its supply in 2019 to more than half the next year, when its allocation of Central Valley Project Water was cut to 20%. District officials estimate that more than 75% of their water may now come from underground.

“The risk now is that the groundwater wells go dry, which is happening,” said Sarah Woolf, a Westlands grower and water-management consultant.

What is Groundwater?

A majority of America’s drinking water comes from groundwater pulled from wells. As groundwater decreases, wells can dry up.

Source: California Dept. of Water Resources

Brian McGill and Camille Bressange/The Wall Street Journal

The number of dry wells reported per quarter to the state in California reached a 10-year high of 720 in the quarter that ended Sept. 30, up from 35 two years ago. The majority are in the southern Central Valley, including Fresno County, where Westlands is located. 

In Tulare County, community activists also blame agricultural groundwater pumping for leaving two towns, Tooleville (population 184) and East Orosi (population 624), without water this summer.

Noemi Barrera, 36 years old, said her family of six gets 5 gallons of bottled water delivered by the local water district every two weeks. But she said it quickly runs out.

When that happens, the Tooleville resident said, “I can’t do dishes, I can’t wash clothes, and my kids can’t take a shower.”

Farmers blame the woes on a water-delivery system—both federal and state—that many see as focused more on protecting species than the economy.

“The problem is the way these projects are operated,” said Mark Borba, a grower in Fresno County. Mr. Borba, 71, said he has had to fallow half his 2,200 acres of crops, resulting in a projected loss of $2 million for the year.

With more problems looming for farmers, including new state restrictions on how much groundwater they can pump, Mr. Borba is pessimistic about the future. “There’s always the hope for a better year,” he said, “but it already looks bleak going forward.”