Low water allocation angers California farmers

Emilio Alcantar uses suction to pull water into a tube as part an irrigation process for tomatoes on a Los Banos farm in 2014. Emilio Alcantar uses suction to pull water into a tube as part an irrigation process for tomatoes on a Los Banos farm in 2014. Photo: Leah Millis, The Chronicle Buy photo Photo: Leah Millis, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 7 Caption Close Low water allocation angers California farmers 1 / 7 Back to Gallery

WASHINGTON — Farmers on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley holding junior water rights erupted in outrage Friday after learning they would get a bare 5 percent allocation of their contracted water this year, despite the return of rains to California and the overflow of some reservoirs.

“At some point, elected officials are going to have to make a decision about whether this region of the country, the Central Valley, and what we do here and what we grow here, is worth preserving and protecting,” said Johnny Amaral, spokesman for Westlands Water District, the nation’s largest.

The district sprawls across 1,000 square miles, and its farmers, who grow $1 billion worth of crops a year — mainly almonds, pistachios, melons, onions, garlic and processing tomatoes — have received no water at all for the past two years.

“I happen to think this area is worth fighting for,” Amaral said. “What’s happening is wrong, and we will keep fighting to change this.”

Western Growers, a farm group that represents many California produce growers, said the federal allocation was so low that it “provides dark confirmation that a policy of destruction of farmland is in place.”

Action in Congress

The rock-bottom allocation intensified calls in Congress by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and House Republicans from the San Joaquin Valley to push legislation that would steer more water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta to the west side. Just last week, Feinstein and the Republicans sent simultaneous letters to President Obama demanding that more water be pumped to farmers, a position opposed by environmentalists and others who want to reduce pumping to help preserve what’s left of the delta smelt.

Feinstein called the allocations “further proof of the need for short- and long-term solutions to get through this drought,” and urged Senate action on her legislation, which among other things, would ease rules on pumping. The growers agree, arguing that endangered-species protections should be loosened because the west side of the San Joaquin Valley is critical to food production.

At the same time Friday that west-side farmers learned they would get less water than they’d hoped for, senior water rights holders, such as farmers whose land lies near rivers or whose water rights go back a century or more, were told they would get their full 100 percent allocations. Farmers on the arid west side of the valley who began receiving water after the federal Central Valley Project was built in the middle of the last century stand at the end of the line for water deliveries.

The Central Valley Project moves water from the wetter northern part of the state through the delta to users in the drier south. Many species of fish that rely on the delta, including salmon and smelt, are nearing extinction as a result of both the four-year drought and decades of damming and drying rivers for human use.

“The fact is (federal water authorities) are delivering too much water, operating at the very maximum limits set by the Fish and Wildlife Service to protect species about to go extinct,” said Jon Rosenfield, a fish biologist at the Bay Institute, an environmental group.

Concern about delta

He said this year’s rains have helped the fish, but that nearly 60 percent of all the runoff in the Central Valley is being captured or diverted for human use, or for cities and farms, before it reaches the estuary. He said only 12 percent of the flow of the San Joaquin River reaches the delta.

The federal Bureau of Reclamation, which operates the project, said the water allocations are “based on a cautious estimate” that “reflects current reservoir storages, precipitation and snowpack in the Central Valley and Sierra Nevada.”

Several other water users around the state also received less than their full allocations. Municipal and industrial users south of the delta received 55 percent of their historic use. Users relying on Friant Dam east of Fresno on the San Joaquin River will get 30 percent, and those relying on the New Melones Reservoir on the Stanislaus River will receive a zero allocation.

The so-called “Godzilla El Niño” that was predicted last fall never materialized with the force many scientists expected, but the rains and snowfall did bring the state close to its long-term average. After four years of record drought, the state’s reservoirs were at dire levels, and much of the water has gone to refill them.

Unequal distribution

The water did not arrive evenly around the state. Some reservoirs, such as Shasta and Folsom reached their capacity and spilled water, in part because archaic rules require reservoirs to drain water to maintain a buffer against potential floods from further rain, regardless of modern weather forecasts.

Others such as San Luis Reservoir, which Westlands uses, began last fall at just 27 percent of its average capacity and remains at just 53 percent, the bureau said.

The bureau said the Central Valley Project began last fall at a storage capacity of just 47 percent of its average. Officials said they kept releases to a minimum over the rainy season to allow reservoirs to fill.

“The combined effect of four years of drought, lack of available water at the beginning of the 2016 water year, and restrictions to protect listed species are impacting the amount of water that can be allocated to South-of-Delta agricultural water service contractors,” the bureau said in its announcement Friday.

Amaral said Westlands farmers “will do what we have done the last few years, which is pump groundwater, which is not sustainable,” and to buy water from those who got full allocations.

Carolyn Lochhead is The San Francisco Chronicle’s Washington correspondent. Email: clochhead@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @carolynlochhead