'Worst drought' looking likely, California official says

 Brace yourselves: California appears to be heading into a third dry year - and the first significant drought since the early 1990s.

It could get even worse.

"We may be at the start of the worst California drought in modern history," warned Lester Snow, director of the state Department of Water Resources. "It is imperative for Californians to conserve water immediately at home and in their businesses."

State water managers months ago told their customers — which include a few East Bay and South Bay agencies and Southern California — they would likely get 15 percent of their requests for Delta water. That figure might have to be reduced.

Many local water agencies, including the Contra Costa Water District, are waiting for definitive figures before announcing decisions about water rationing in March or April, but the likelihood of rationing in many parts of the state is high — and growing.

Ironically, the East Bay Municipal Utility District, one of the handful of water districts already rationing water, could lift rationing if precipitation is normal through spring, spokesman Jeff Becerra said.

The second snow survey of the year on Thursday found the Sierra snowpack at 61 percent of normal. That's half as much as last year, and water managers worry that if winter storms end early — as has happened in the past two years — it could severely affect water supplies.

Expect no Delta water at all, farmers in the Westlands Water District have been told.

And with at least a week of bone-dry weather in the forecast, the outlook is bleak.

It would take 30 feet of snow in the Sierra to bring the snowpack up to normal, state meteorologist Elissa Lynn said.

"That's probably not going to happen," Lynn said. "We're in a third dry year."

The state's major reservoirs are about one-third full, or about half of where they normally would be this time of year.

Not everyone is resigned to a drought.

Phil Wente of Wente Vineyards in Livermore and Pleasanton said he was remaining hopeful.

"In my 40 years of being around here I find the rainfall seasons are very random," he said. "We could have the wettest March on record yet — we don't know that yet."

The problem for water managers is not just that the state appears to be in a third consecutive dry winter. It is also that a host of restrictions to protect smelt, salmon and steelhead will make it more difficult to recover from dry conditions even if Mother Nature cooperates.

Big increases in recent years in the amount of water taken from the Delta have contributed to widespread declines in fish populations, and now wildlife protection laws are biting back with tough new regulations on water deliveries.

It appears to be the first serious drought since many of the state's fish species were added to the list of threatened and endangered species.

"If it was just a drought, a big February or March could take this off the hook. But it's not just a drought," said Timothy Quinn, executive director of the Association of California Water Agencies.

Quinn said it is highly likely that Southern California will have widespread rationing this year — something that has not happened in almost 20 years.

In December, federal regulators issued a permit that forces water operators to protect Delta smelt, a 2- to 3-inch fish that is fairly nondescript but near extinction.

That permit has drawn complaints from water users, but so far this year it has had zero effect on water supplies, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

However, environmental considerations could have a much larger effect soon.

For example, it is not clear how water managers are going to meet requirements to maintain cold water in salmon streams through the summer and have enough water in them at the end of the year to ensure cold water in 2010.

In addition, rules to protect salmon, steelhead and sturgeon are due in early March and they are widely expected to be tougher than the existing rules.

Quinn said water agencies estimate that if that permit goes through, it and the smelt requirements would reduce water deliveries by about 2.5 million acre-feet. That's 40 percent less than the record high levels delivered in recent years to water agencies in the Bay Area, San Joaquin Valley, Central Coast and Southern California.

In effect, Delta pumping in average water years would be at levels previously reserved for severe droughts, Quinn said.

There's more.

State biologists are recommending next week that another fish, longfin smelt, go on the threatened and endangered species list. Keeping those fish away from Delta pumps could tighten the spigot another turn.

Still another permit — this one to protect water quality — says that on Saturday more water must flow through the Delta to make it less salty.

That would slow water deliveries from the Delta to a trickle, drain what little is left in the state's reservoirs, or both.