Gov. Gavin Newsom watches as water engineers conduct the fourth media snow survey of the 2024 season in the Sierra Nevada on April 2, 2024. Newsom used the event to warn Californians that the state’s water future is uncertain.After years of drought, California’s water supply is the healthiest it’s been in the 21st century. Nevertheless, the state’s age-old jousting over water use priorities continues and may become more intense as climate change affects the amount of water available.
The water plan must be revised every five years and the new version dwells on “resilience” — making the water systems less— and “equity.” It notes that “for more than 95% of Californians, safe, reliable and affordable water is perceived to be a daily guarantee, but for approximately 1 million Californians, there is a persistent struggle to access water fit for human consumption.”
The updated plan describes itself as a “call to action, an all-hands-on-deck endeavor, in which everyone has a role — state agencies and departments with water, regulatory, and climate responsibilities; regional water and resource managers and stewards at every scale across water sectors; and individual Californians.”on the west side of the Sacramento Valley to bank 1.
Environmentalists are pressing the state Water Resources Control Board to mandate reductions by updating Delta water quality standards, but that effort collides withThe new water plan dances around the issue, endorsing the concept of voluntary agreements but declaring that the water board needs “increased capacity to halt water diversions when the flows in streams diminish modernize the water rights system in a manner that respects water right priorities and aligns with current public values...