California's San Joaquin Valley growers may face a second year of receiving no water from the Central Valley Project — an unprecedented situation.

The Bureau of Reclamation announced its initial 2015 water supply allocation for California's Central Valley. It will be re-examined on a monthly basis as the water year progresses, but this year started with Northern California's driest January in recorded history and the state is experiencing its fourth consecutive year of below-average precipitation.

“The CVP announcement is both saddening and maddening,” Paul Wenger, California Farm Bureau Federation president, said in a press release. “It’s saddening because the continued cutoff of water will prolong the impact of water shortages on farmers, their employees and rural communities. It’s maddening because California still struggles to manage water wisely and flexibly, especially in dry years.”

The California Department of Water Resources reports snowpack is below average for this date with the snow water content statewide currently at 20 percent or less of average for this time of year. The Governor’s Emergency Drought Proclamation, issued Jan. 17, 2014, remains in effect. Without unusually heavy precipitation over the next few months, extreme drought conditions are forecasted to persist throughout the Central Valley.

“We are bracing for a potential fourth year of severe drought, and this low initial allocation is yet another indicator of the dire situation,” Reclamation Mid-Pacific Regional Director David Murillo said in a press release. “Reclamation and the Department of the Interior will continue to work with the state of California and our water users to do everything possible to increase water deliveries from the project as we move yet another difficult year. Our economy and our environment depend on it.

“The rain events in December were encouraging, but the persistent dry weather the first two months of this year underscores our need to plan for another critical year of drought," Murillo said in the release. "We have been working closely for months with our state and federal agency partners to try to minimize impacts and will continue to do so."

Wenger noted ongoing conflicts in water management, specifically about how much water is repeatedly dedicated to protection of fish and wildlife at the expense of jobs and food production for people.

“In a year like this, when every drop of water is more precious than ever, we must improve our ability to store storm flows when we can,” he said. “People have real frustration about bureaucratic decisions that send excess water out to sea beyond what’s needed for the ecosystem and delta water quality, when that water could be stored for later use, both by people and in the environment.”

Wenger said the continued drought lends urgency to the current process of allocating money to be invested from the water bond approved by California voters last November.

“Farm Bureau and other organizations will continue to work with the California Water Commission to ensure that bond money for surface-water storage projects is apportioned as rapidly and as effectively as possible,” Wenger said. “We are suffering now from our past failure to improve our water system. We shouldn’t compound the suffering by studying projects to death. It’s time to invest the money that Californians voted to invest.”

This initial set of CVP allocations is based on a conservative assumption that dry conditions will continue for the remainder of the water year. With almost two months remaining in California’s rainy season, there is still an opportunity for improved conditions and supplies.