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Some Valley Farmers May Get A Full Water Allocation, Others Will Have To Wait To Find Out

Westlands Water District website
File Photo of Westlands Water District

The federal Bureau of Reclamation announced Tuesday how much water water districts across California should expect to receive this year. Eastside growers in the Friant Division within Fresno County should receive a 100 percent allocation. Ryan Jacobsen is the CEO of the Fresno County Farm Bureau.

 

“It’s something that we obviously haven’t seen since 2011 and so it's a great opportunity to try to restore the  flows to farmers who have lost and most importantly get some of that water back into the ground.”

 

Other growers will have to wait until sometime late March to find out what their allocation will be. Jacobsen says the wait will hurt westside growers.

 

“It just causes my farmers the ability not to be able to plan out what they are going to plant this season," Jacobsen says. "It allows fields to remain empty that should have some type of economic activity in it, but it's not able to do that without knowing what that allocation is going to be.”

 

In years to come the Bureau of Reclamation says it will “strive to release initial allocations for all water users in February.”

 

Ezra David Romero is an award-winning radio reporter and producer. His stories have run on Morning Edition, Morning Edition Saturday, Morning Edition Sunday, All Things Considered, Here & Now, The Salt, Latino USA, KQED, KALW, Harvest Public Radio, etc.
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