California farmers with strongest water rights voluntarily cut water use by 25 percent amid drought

California farmers who hold some of the state's strongest water rights avoided the threat of deep mandatory cuts when the state accepted their proposal Friday to voluntarily reduce consumption by 25 percent amid one of the worst droughts on record.

 

Officials hope the deal will serve as a model for more such agreements with growers in the nation's top-producing farm state, where agriculture accounts for 80 percent of all water drawn from rivers, streams and the ground.

 

"We're in a drought unprecedented in our time. That's calling upon us to take unprecedented action," Felicia Marcus, chairwoman of the state Water Resources Control Board, said in announcing the agreement.

 

The rare concession from the farmers is the latest indication of the severity of the water shortage in California, which is suffering through its driest four years on record.

 

California water law is built around preserving the rights of so-called senior rights holders — farmers and others whose acreage abuts rivers and streams, or whose claims to water date back a century or more, as far back as Gold Rush days.

 

The offer potentially could cover hundreds of farmers in the delta of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers, the heart of California's water system. About 25 percent of all California river water runs through the delta, according to the state's Department of Water Resources.

 

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