El Niño Has Been Good To San Francisco's Water Supply
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) -- It looks like San Francisco will have more than enough water this year, thanks to a rainy winter.
The city's water managers are all but declaring that the drought will be over
"We already know there's a good bit of snow on the hill above Hetch Hetchy," SFPUC Assistant General Manager Steven Ritchie said during Tuesday's meeting.
"The snowpack front is well above 2013."
Ritchie says that if the median projection comes through for the Hetch Hetchy system, San Francisco will have one million acre-feet of water, and the reservoirs only hold 800,000.
If the El Niño pattern returns and dumps more rain and snow than normal, the City could have fifty percent more water than that.
He expects the rain to return later this month.
Ritchie says people should keep conserving, but San Francisco should have more than enough water to supply the many Bay Area cities, rural districts and farms that depend on the Hetch Hetchy system.
