News release
A new report released from the Department of Water Resources examines how a combination of strategies, most importantly the Delta Conveyance Project, can help the State Water Project maintain reliable water deliveries to 27 million Californians despite hotter temperatures, more extreme storms, more severe droughts, and higher sea levels, according to a news release from the DWR.
This first-ever State Water Project Adaptation Strategy details over a dozen different actions DWR is already taking or evaluating. The plan concludes that while climate change makes a long-term decline in SWP annual average water deliveries likely, a portfolio of actions can offset much of the decline.
The plan focuses on five actions to help DWR understand which holds the greatest potential to help climate-proof the SWP. The report says the most promising action to improve water supply reliability is the construction of the Delta Conveyance Project, for the following reasons:
• The project is the single most effective strategy on its own, but it also amplifies the impact of other strategies.
• The proposed project would build two new intakes and a tunnel to move water directly from the Sacramento River to the existing SWP pumping plant in the Delta.
• This would safeguard water deliveries from disruption in the event of levee collapse in the Delta and would enable the SWP to capture more storm runoff.
• Additionally, the project would help prevent water delivery disruptions by providing protection against earthquakes.
The SWP Climate Adaptation Strategy also finds that continued maintenance and additional restoration of the infrastructure system, including repairing subsidence-damaged sections of the California Aqueduct, are first-priority measures.
“Anything that compromises the State Water Project poses a threat to public health and economic success,” DWR Director Karla Nemeth said in the release. “This analysis helps us understand the best science-based strategies to ensure continued SWP deliveries in the face of both greater aridity and more powerful storms. We need that not just for the public water agencies that pay for the State Water Project, but to continue the role the State Water Project plays in protecting Delta water quality during drought and upstream communities during floods.”
DWR operates the SWP and manages water resources statewide. The Santa Clarita Valley Water Agency, which provides a mix of local groundwater and imported supplies to customers throughout the SCV, is one of the 29 agencies statewide that rely on the State Water Project, which has Castaic Lake as a southern terminus.
