California’s drought endures: Feds’ Central Valley Project announces 0% water for farmers

The federal government announced initial 2022 water allocations Wednesday for customers of the Central Valley Project, and the figures were dismal: Most irrigation districts in the Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys can expect to receive no deliveries from the project’s vast network of reservoirs and canals.

Despite some snowfall this week, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, which runs the project, said weeks of dry weather wiped out many of the gains recorded during the rainy and snowy December. In just the first two weeks of February, major reservoirs such as Shasta, Folsom and Oroville lost 1.2 million acre-feet of expected inflow. An acre-foot is 326,000 gallons.

“Last year was a very bad year; this year could turn out to be worse,” said Ernest Conant, the bureau’s regional director.