Despite drought, Californians fall short in water cutbacks

Zone 7 gets most of its water from the state, while Santa Clara Valley gets on average about 40 percent of its water from the Delta through state and federal water projects.

Since June, when the water-cutback requirements went into effect, DWP customers have cut their use by a cumulative 16.4 percent, putting the agency just ahead of the state-set mandate, according to the State Water Resources Control Board. Early winter El Nino storms, however, blanketed the Sierra Nevada with an above-average snowpack. Flow requirements for environmental purposes were reduced in 2014 and 2015 by state regulators struggling to balance competing demands for water.

– Fallbrook Public Utility District, 36 percent and 26 percent.

It is important to note that almost all areas served by the SWP also have other sources of water, among them streams, groundwater and local reservoirs.

The state met the 25 percent savings goal in each of the first four months, but conservation rates have steadily declined since October.

The project’s main reservoir, Lake Oroville, was about half full Wednesday and at 74 percent of its historical average for this time of year.

With more than 1.1 million acre-feet of water conserved from June 2015 through January, the state is 96 percent of the way toward reaching its goal of 1.2 million acre-feet of water to be saved by the end of February, “an unprecedented conservation achievement, ” the State Water Resources Control Board says Thursday.

A month ago, the allocation was pegged at 15 percent. Last year’s allocation came in at 20 percent. Since then, the state has been swept by drought-fueled forest fires, in addition to vast tracts of farmland being fallowed and some communities left scrambling for drinking water.

State water officials concede that opportunities to conserve water dry up during the fall and winter, particularly when it rains, because people don’t have to irrigate their lawns or water their flowers.