California is in a situation right now where the northern part of the state (above Sacramento) is very wet, and the rest of the state is pretty dry. The major reservoirs in northern California, Lake Shasta and Lake Oroville, are releasing huge amounts of water to maintain flood control space in the lakes. This water flows down the Sacramento River on its way to the ocean, and the amount of water being released is staggering. Well over 100,000 cubic feet per second (200,000 acre feet per day) is flowing out to the ocean. You would think that now is the time to fully utilize the pumping capacity of the water export projects that transfer water from northern California to the dry central and southern parts of the state, but that is not happening. The federal pumps are running at full capacity, but the bigger state pumps are only running at about 40% of their permitted capacity. WHY?
Governor Newsom issued an executive order on January 31, 2025, that, among other things, ordered:
“The Department of Water Resources is directed to take all feasible and appropriate action to maximize diversions of excess flows that become available as a result of the anticipated winter storms, and other winter storms, to storage, including storage in San Luis Reservoir.”
It seems from this emergency order that DWR should be fully utilizing its pumping capacity to move water to the needy parts of the state. There is a lot of storage room available south of the delta in surface reservoirs and underground water banks. What is lacking is the action to actually make this happen. The rules that regulate operations in the delta claim to provide “adaptive management,” but for that to work, decisions need to be made in real time, not months or years from now. This window of opportunity where there are millions of acre feet of water – far in excess of any environmental needs – flowing past idle pumps cannot be acceptable to a government that also cares about people.
Governor Newsom has made the right first move in his executive order. He was in Washington, D.C. this week talking to the President, and was also briefed on this exact issue by Congressman Doug LaMalfa who represents the Sacramento Valley. Let’s hope and pray that common sense prevails.
See Congressman Doug LaMalfa on an episode of the “California Insider,” where he discusses his conversation with Governor Newsom. Watch here.
Geoff Vanden Heuvel
Director of Regulatory and Economic Affairs