The Hill News

California has just had one of its wettest winters in memory. But even with the Sierra Nevada snowpack at 165 percent of normal, California’s State Water Project can supply only 70 percent of what water agencies need.

Why?

Because the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has ordered cutbacks in water deliveries to protect the Delta smelt, an endangered fish that lives in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, which supplies two-thirds of California’s population.

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