The State Water Resources Board ordered a reduction in water allotments to some of California’s most senior rights holders, who have been assured of unlimited water from waterways for more than a century, said the San Jose Mercury News. The decision affected 100 individuals and water agencies that use 1.2 million acre-feet of water a year, roughly twice as much as the city of Los Angeles. “It was the latest dramatic action taken by state officials in the fourth year of a punishing drought – and the reaction from agricultural interests was quick and angry.”
A top official in the Oakdale Irrigation District, which serves farmers east of Manteca, California, said the district was prepared to go to court to stop the curtailment. The district established its right to water before the resources board was created, he told the Mercury News, so the state cannot intervene. The state board limited the curtailments to rights established since 1903. Senior rights holders who staked claims before 1903 can continue to draw water, said the Mercury News.
The director of the resources board said additional curtailments are likely. New restrictions could be announced as early as this weekend. The impact of the announcement will vary. The Turlock and Modest irrigation districts say they already have stored their water in a reservoir, so there will be no reductions. The resources board director said each water-rights holder has different options. “When they run out of options, they’ll have to abandon whatever crops are cultivated at the time …. There is no question that some land will end up being fallowed as a result of this,” the official told the Mercury News.
The Independent said the cuts would be the largest in California history. “Economists and agriculture experts say that the cuts are expected to have little immediate impact on food prices, with the growing of some crops to shift to regions with more water in the short-term.” It was the first time since 1977 the state has ordered senior water rights holders to stop diverting water from rivers and streams.
Felicia Marcus, chair of the Water Resources Board, is a drought celebrity, “the face of California’s crackdown on water abusers,” says the the New York Times in a profile of the former regional EPA administrator who is credited as a conciliator who has kept peace among cities, industry, agriculture and environmentalists. “The rainy season is over. We know we are in for an awful summer,” Marcus tells the Times.