Following a series of storms that moved through Northern California in recent weeks, the California Department of Water Resources announced it has increased its water allocations to the 29 public water agencies that are served by the State Water Project. The project is a 700-mile network of canals and dams that spans from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to Southern California. The allocation has increased to 15% of requested supplies, up from the initial allocation forecast of 5% announced in early December. 

“While we typically wait to provide an update until January, we felt it important to let our State Water Contractors know of the increase as soon as possible to allow them to better plan their water supply for the year ahead,” said DWR Director Karla Nemeth in a statement last week.

The two largest agencies that contract water through the State Water Project serve rural and urban needs. The Kern County Water Agency serves 882,200 residents over 8,163 square miles and the Metropolitan Water District serves 19 million residents over 5,200 square miles in greater Los Angeles.

The requested supplies are based on the contracts that the water agencies have with the State Water Project and 100 percent of those contracts set a maximum amount of water that they can receive, according to DWR spokesperson Ryan Endean. The allocation is a percentage of that maximum.

Allocations are updated monthly as snowpack, rainfall, and runoff information is assessed, with a final allocation typically determined in May or June. New percentages are announced throughout the year, with the last 100% allocation happening in April 2023, according to state records. The 2024 water year, which began Dec. 2023 saw allocations of no more than 40%.

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“California is still in the early months of our wet season and as recent history has shown, conditions can change quickly,” said Dr. Michael Anderson, State Climatologist. “While Northern California has benefitted from early season storms, dry conditions in the new year can leave us with below average totals when warmer weather arrives.”

Ruth Dusseault is an investigative reporter and multimedia journalist focused on environment and energy. Her position is supported by the California local news fellowship, a statewide initiative spearheaded by UC Berkeley aimed at supporting local news platforms. While a student at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism (c’23), Ruth developed stories about the social and environmental circumstances of contaminated watersheds around the Great Lakes, Mississippi River and Florida’s Lake Okeechobee. Her thesis explored rights of nature laws in small rural communities. She is a former assistant professor and artist in residence at Georgia Tech’s School of Architecture, and uses photography, film and digital storytelling to report on the engineered systems that undergird modern life.