Our question this week comes from John. He asks:
“How come we have only received a 5% allocation of state water for this year 2023 when flood water is still going to the ocean out through the Delta?”
Thank you for your question, John. For too long, the Central Valley has suffered from devastating drought conditions, unfair water allocations, and gross mismanagement of the water we do have by Sacramento bureaucrats and environmentalists. Our community is resilient, but the fact remains that our farms will not survive without a reliable water supply for South-of-Delta agriculture. This dire situation emphasizes the need for more storage capacity so we can capture water when we have a surplus.
Despite the increased rainfall California saw over the last two weeks, the pumps that are in place to deliver water to farms, homes, and businesses aren’t allowed to run at their full capacity due to environmental regulations.
If we had increased flexibility on these pumping regulations to account for real-time conditions, we could have captured 84,000 more acre-feet of water during two weeks of these storms.
Increasing flexibility in how we operate these pumps, as well as investing in critical water storage infrastructure and conveyance projects, will allow us to maximize what can be moved at all times through the Delta and make us more resilient to drought.
I introduced H.R. 215, the WATER for California Act to address some of these issues
I will always fight to secure a reliable and clean supply of water for our communities.