California Water allocation hits record low level

California water allocation hits record-low level - Reuters

* Planned 2010 deliveries cut to 5 pct of allotments

* Allocation figure typically raised later

* Cuts forced by drought and environmental restrictions

By Steve Gorman

LOS ANGELES, Dec 1 (Reuters) - California officials said on Tuesday that drought and environmental restrictions have forced them to cut planned water deliveries to irrigation districts and cities statewide to just 5 percent of their contracted allotments.

Although the state Water Resources Department typically ends up supplying more water than first projected for an upcoming year, its 5 percent initial allocation for 2010 marks the smallest on record since the agency began delivering water in 1967.

The level initially set for this year was 15 percent of maximum amounts allowed for delivery under the state's water contracts, but that figure was later raised to 40 percent.

Still, the initial allocation set for 2010 was greeted with alarm by water users up and down a state already beset with chronic budget problems and unemployment levels above the national average.

"On the heels of three years of drought and ongoing regulatory restrictions, we are now bracing for yet another year of painfully limited water supplies," said Laura King Moon, assistant general manager for the State Water Contractors.

By comparison, final water allocations had run closer to 70 percent of requests in the years before the current drought.

Seeking to address California's deepening water crisis, the state Legislature and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger reached agreement last month on a landmark package of measures to conserve water and pour billions of dollars into new water infrastructure projects.

The state supplies more than 25 million people and over 750,000 acres (300,000 hectares) of farmland with water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta in northern California, fed by rainfall and snow-melt runoff from the Sierra Nevada mountain range.

That water is delivered to municipalities and irrigation districts throughout California by way of a sprawling network of reservoirs, pipelines, aqueducts and pumping stations known as the State Water Project.

But the prolonged drought, the worst in state history, has depleted the Sierra snowpack and reservoir levels. Complicating matters are federal restrictions on delta pumping levels in order to protect endangered fish species.

The water shortage has forced California cities large and small to ration supplies and idled large tracts of cropland in the state's Central Valley, which has long produced over half the fruit, vegetables and nuts grown in the United States.