2026 began in California with two atmospheric rivers and storms, which resulted in precipitation that was 119% of average rainfall for January. However, much of it flowed into the Pacific Ocean.
Moreover, by the end of February our statewide snowpack was only 66% of average for this date, constituting a significant decline from 85% at this time last year. This is critical because the snowpack acts as a reservoir that releases water to rivers and supplies man-made reservoirs when the climate is dry. If our existing number of reservoirs — built to supply a smaller population — reach capacity, they cannot store the runoff.
We Californians must never lose sight of the fact that our state suffers intermittently from droughts. Indeed, California was suffering from drought when it first became a state in 1850. One of our longest droughts lasted seven years from 1928-1934. And California has suffered drought for 12 of the past 20 years — 2007-2009, 2012-2016 and 2019-2022. It therefore should be obvious that to serve its residents, California must build more water storage facilities that capture and store rain and runoff.
In the past, our foresighted forebears constructed multiple water storage and conveyance projects to address our climate, including dams, reservoirs and storage facilities. These turned California into a glittering economic and agricultural powerhouse. But over the past 15 years, our state government has not acted with any alacrity to mitigate the effect of our periodic droughts, resulting in desperate farmers during drought laying off workers, leaving fields fallow and over-tapping ground water basins in the central valley, resulting in land subsidence. This is no way to run a state.
In his State of the State address this January, Gov. Gavin Newsom bragged that he was ‘’building more infrastructure projects than at any time since Governor Brown,” including the “Sites Reservoir, the first above-ground water storage in 50 years.” To the contrary, his administration has moved with all deliberate delay.
In 2014, California voters passed, by a 67% to 33% margin, Proposition 1 — a $7.1 billion bond measure, $2.7 billion of which was allocated to water storage projects. Today, eleven years later, not one project has been completed! Construction of the Sites Reservoir, mentioned by the governor in his speech, is not scheduled to even begin until late 2026, 12 years following the passage of Proposition 1. It is anticipated to be operational only at the end of 2033, 19 years after the voters approved the measure.
The California Water Commission, which is composed of nine members appointed by, and accountable to the governor, was charged with selecting the water storage projects to be funded by the voter-authorized bond measure. But two water storage projects, Kern Fan and Willow Springs, are not even scheduled to have a hearing to award funds until 2027 and 2028.
The Pacheco Reservoir Expansion Project, which would only hold 140,000 acre feet of water (compared to the 1.5 million acre feet offered by the Sites Reservoir), is not scheduled to even begin construction until 2029 and is proposed to begin operations only after 2036. Another project, the Chino Basin Program, will not begin construction until late 2028 and will only store 15,000 acre-feet of water per year.) The Kern Fan Project, which would store only up to 100,000 acre-feet of water, is not scheduled to even receive a hearing for its funding until 2028 and would not be operational until 2031.
Farmers in the San Joaquin Valley rely on Lake Shasta for water and have proposed a plan to raise Shasta Dam by 18 feet, which would increase Lake Shasta’s capacity by 14%. That project would not require a new reservoir and would have enough capacity equal to filling Folsom Lake two-thirds full. But the state has so far declined.
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California was a land of dreams because our leaders dreamed big. Now it is the land of limitations because our leaders think small. With elections for a new governor and a new Legislature this year, voters can change this if they start asking the right questions.
Daniel M. Kolkey is a former judge and former counsel to Governor Pete Wilson and serves on the board of Pacific Research Institute.
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