The State Water Resources Control Board adopted its Bay-Delta Plan update on October 29, 2026, seven months after East Bay Municipal Utility District warned that a 55% unimpaired-flow rule could leave its supply short in virtually every year. The plan's voluntary Healthy Rivers and Landscapes pathway is to begin no later than October 1, 2027, once the Office of Administrative Law approves the plan, with a regulatory pathway as the backstop.
What the District warned
In its March 2026 bond disclosure, the District said state modeling of that objective, combined with a cold-water habitat objective, showed its supply falling short of assumed demand "by a very significant margin." Average Mokelumne runoff is about 740,000 acre-feet a year.
What the District offered
The District has pursued the voluntary route with a Mokelumne proposal that adds Camanche releases in certain year types, habitat work and a contribution to a water purchase program and builds on a 1998 fish-flow settlement. Whether that proposal is part of the program as adopted was not stated in the October 2026 announcements.
The dry-year backstops
The District's federal contract allows up to 133,000 acre-feet in a single dry year and 165,000 acre-feet over three, delivered through the Freeport project at up to 100 MGD. It holds first priority to up to 10,000 acre-feet of Yuba summer transfer water through 2035, and a Placer County deal for 10,000–47,000 acre-feet in certain dry years is expected in late 2027. A San Joaquin County program would also seek up to 110,000 acre-feet a year of Mokelumne water, junior to existing rights.
How the plan's pathways could apply to the Mokelumne, how the District's storage, aqueducts and treatment plants are being renewed, and which institutions and regulators govern each part of the system are examined in the report. The full report, Water Systems Overview: East Bay Municipal Utility District, is available for USD 499. For a free overview, read the East Bay Municipal Utility District Utility Snapshot.