It wasn\u2019t that long ago that drought dominated the West.<\/p>\n
From 2014 to 2017 and again from 2021 to 2023, record after record was broken as clear skies and relentless sunshine became the norm. The governor\u2019s office initiated statewide prohibitions on \u201cwasteful water use,\u201d mandating that cities, towns and urban water suppliers reduce their potable water consumption by 25%. In Sonoma County, the three-year drought was the region\u2019s worst since 1977-78 and is part of the most pronounced dry period in over 1,200 years.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Contrast that with the 2022\u20132023 water year, one of the wettest and snowiest in California\u2019s recorded history. In a single season, it ended the state\u2019s three driest consecutive years on record, earning the label \u201cweather whiplash\u201d as local governments and utilities rapidly shifted from managing extreme drought to widespread flooding within a matter of months.<\/p>\n
California has always been subject to extreme swings in weather, and aggressive conservation goals have long been the tool of choice for bridging the gap.<\/p>\n
But conservation alone isn\u2019t enough to solve California\u2019s water woes. In Senate Bill 72 (Caballero, 2025), lawmakers identified that the state needs 9 million acre-feet of additional water supply annually to be sustainable.<\/p>\n
Just 1.19 million acre-feet were conserved by urban Californians during the aggressive and painful reduction targets of 2015-2016. That represents 13% of what is needed.<\/p>\n
Add to this the new water-savings habits stuck as urban residents have continued to reduce their use. On farms, substantial financial investments have increased adoption of technology and more efficient irrigation practices have resulted in real savings. In fact, in 2023, roughly 56% of irrigated acres in California were watered with drip, trickle or low-flow sprinklers, up from just 15.8% in 1991.<\/p>\n
Farmers are so precise in how and when they deliver water to their crop\u2019s roots, that even while California\u2019s farm production value rose roughly 38% between 1980 and 2015, agricultural water use fell about 14%.<\/p>\n
The truth is, California doesn\u2019t have a water supply problem. It has a water management problem\u2026and it\u2019s getting worse.<\/p>\n
With every new year, our water supply has been shifting from snowpack storage to wetter, rain-driven runoff, and we don\u2019t have enough reservoir capacity to keep up with the deluge. In many situations, wet-year runoff arrives in quantities that create flood risk which threatens local communities.<\/p>\n
Rather than pointing fingers, our state\u2019s next governor must act quickly to bring all parties together and solve for how we will capture, move, and bank more water.<\/p>\n
California\u2019s population was about 15 million when most major reservoirs were designed and permitted. Today, about 40 million people live in the state, relying on a water system built for less than half that number. Californians have made incredible strides in water conservation for decades, and climate change adds even more pressure to an aging water supply system.<\/p>\n
We must find ways to increase water exports from the Sacramento\u2013San Joaquin Delta, which is how much of the Los Angeles basin receive their water. South-of-Delta Central Valley Project water service contractors received 40% or less of contracted allocations in six of the past 10 years. Practical steps to fortify levees, dredging where most impactful, and increase operational flexibility within existing biological opinions can work together to move more water south when conditions allow.<\/p>\n
Finally \u2014 in a move that would benefit Sonoma County \u2014 it\u2019s critical that the state invest in groundwater recharge, banking water in underground aquifers during wet years so it\u2019s available during dry times. Local Groundwater Sustainability Agencies (GSAs) are taking significant steps toward this goal, but without increases in surface water availability, their efforts will have limited impact.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s time to stop pretending that conservation alone can secure our water future. California can\u2019t negotiate with the weather, but we can choose to build a system that captures wet-year abundance, stores it responsibly, and delivers it reliability.<\/p>\n
The question for the next governor isn\u2019t whether they need to act; it\u2019s whether they\u2019re willing to do what the future demands.<\/p>\n
Michelle Paul is the executive director of the California Farm Water Coalition; a nonprofit organization committed to helping the public understand the connection between water and the food grown in California. She can be reached at mpaul@farmwater.org. The Press Democrat contributed reporting to this column.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It wasn\u2019t that long ago that drought dominated the West. From 2014 to 2017 and again from 2021…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":403350,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8,642,644,943,36814,73301],"class_list":["post-403349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-drought","tag-flooding","tag-governor","tag-water-conservation","tag-water-security"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403349","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=403349"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403349\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/403350"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=403349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=403349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=403349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}