Drought, federal policies, and mismanagement of existing water resources were reasons for the severe water shortages in California that were listed by some witnesses who testified on those shortages at a field hearing held by the House Subcommittee on Water, Wildlife, and Fisheries.

A witness who is an official at an irrigation reservoir told how in 2023—which was one of the driest years on record—a water-modeling project enabled the reservoir to not only provide customers (including farms) with water, but to also provide enough water to spin turbines and produce electricity without interruption.

The subcommittee held the field hearing in Santa Nella, Calif. on Sept. 6. Some of the six witnesses criticized both federal and state officials for implementing policies that have increased water scarcity and created “a crisis” of “unreliable water.”

Subcommittee Chair Cliff Bentz (R-Ore.) asked witnesses to provide details of the damage to their businesses by not having enough water for their crops, so it can be “brought to the nation’s attention.” 

Allison Febo, general manager of the Westlands Water District (WWD), said the WWD provides water for 620,000 irrigable acres – making it the largest agricultural water district in the U.S. 

“We have some of the most fertile soils in the world and we can grow around 60 crops. Some of those that can't be grown anywhere else in the world,” she said. The crops produced are valued at more than $2 billion and generate more than $74.7 billion in farm related economic activity, including supporting over 35,000 jobs.

“The lifeblood of our district and the way that we are able to generate this agriculture” is with the water supplied by the Central Valley Project (CVP), which is a water storage and conveyance system, said Febo who added, “the crisis we’re facing is the continual erosion of our water supply by the Bureau of Reclamation and its lack of ability to deliver our supply due to changing hydrology caused by the changing climate compounded with the myriad complex and often incongruent regulations.”

For those reasons, an average of over 220,000 acres of land in the WWD is fallowed, Febo said. 

“The changing climate leads to longer dry periods and wetter and faster wet periods” that produce floods, she said. “Those serve as a challenge to the efficiency and effectiveness of the Central Valley Project. Our infrastructure desperately needs improvements and maintenance including additional capacity and storage to manage our resources, effectively compounding our infrastructure challenges.”

However, Jason Phillips, chief executive officer of the Friant Water Authority (FWA) said, “unelected officials” are forcing change to water management in California “and not for the better.” The FWA operates the Friant-Kern Canal that provides irrigation water to more than a million acres of farmland, as well as drinking water to over 250,000 San Joaquin Valley residents.

“Unelected officials at regulatory agencies are delegated the responsibility for being the final decision makers on one of the most significant public policy issues we face in the state of California, that’s how to best allocate the state’s limited water resources,” Phillips said. In addition, requirements for increased compliance with the federal Endangered Species Act “has been taking water away from farms and communities in increasing quantities, yet have made no discernible change to help in the decline of species populations,” he said.

“All of these reductions in surface water deliveries have a ripple effect through the management of water in the San Joaquin Valley,” according to Phillips, who cited an example of such a ripple effect: the increased reliance on groundwater overdraft which has exacerbated the impacts to drinking water systems and to land subsidence – damaging the Friant-Kern Canal.

Conversely, Josh Weimer, director of internal external affairs of the Turlock Irrigation District (TID), an irrigation and water storage project on the Tuolumne River that provides water to about 5,000 growers, outlined how TID has been using hydrological modeling to mitigate the impact of flooding and drought.

The hydrocomp forecasting and analysis model (HFAM) is the hydrological operations model TID uses to direct water operations in California, according to Weimer. 

“HFAM is the central hub for our operations” for the “model breaks down our water watershed into over 800 land segments that factor in soil type, rock formations, tree density, and then we input precipitation, temperature, wind, solar radiation for each land segment. All those inputs then provide us with information on soil moisture, snow pack and runoff in the watershed for each segment,” he said.

HFAM removes “all uncertainty in water operations,” Weimer said. Despite operating during among the “driest three years in history,” the certainty from the modeling and forecasting enabled TID “to run at max capacity for 70 straight days.” And it allowed TID to pass two million-acre feet of water without any downstream flooding.

“Because of this (HFAM) technology,” TID has been able to maximize the current system “for water supply, reliability, flood control for groundwater recharge, hydrogenation and environmental purposes,” Weimer said. 

“We believe that embracing new technology, especially technology that doesn't require any more concrete, is the first and the lowest hanging fruit for better reservoir operations,” he concluded.