San Benito County farmers hope for increase in allocations from federal water projects
A day after state water leaders announced they plan to increase water allocations to farmers and cities, some now hope the federal government will follow the lead and allocate more water from their reservoirs. The decision by state leaders follows a series of atmospheric rivers that filled reservoirs and increased the Sierra snowpack. But federal leaders have yet to make a similar decision. In San Benito County, agriculture leaders hope they do because a large source of water for them comes from the San Luis reservoir, a federal water project, and water levels there have increased drastically in the last month. As of Jan. 27 water capacity was at 57 percent, up from just 24 percent, before a series of storms slammed into the Central Coast.