FRESNO, Calif. – After reviewing the latest runoff data from the California Department of Water Resources and the National Weather Service that was developed since the week of May 29, the Bureau of Reclamation has determined that better than expected conditions allow for an improvement in the Central Valley Project’s Friant Division allocation.In consultation with the Friant Division Contractors, the Friant Division Class 1 water supply allocation is being increased from 45 percent and returned back to 50 percent. Class 2 water remains at 0 percent. (The first 800,000 acre-feet of water supply is considered Class 1 and the next 1.4 million acre-feet is considered Class 2). The latest information on upstream operations, canal demand schedules, and the San Joaquin River Restoration Program flow release schedule have also been incorporated into this allocation update.
Currently, precipitation in the Upper San Joaquin River watershed at Huntington Lake is about 20.4 inches, which is about 50 percent of average for this time of year. Additionally, accumulated natural river flow to date for Water Year 2013 for the Upper San Joaquin Basin is about 730,000 acre-feet, which is about 60 percent of the historical average for this date, and about 40 percent of the total Water Year average of 1.8 million acre-feet.