Water pouring out of California's dams could be sights and sounds of the past unless we get some rain.
In 2013, farmers on the Central Valley's west side only received a 5% water allocation. Next year could be even worse.
"Unless this water year is definitely on the wetter side, they'd expect those folks to get an initial allocation of zero," said Jeanine Jones, Dept. of Water Resources.
In response to this critical situation, Governor Jerry Brown has assembled a drought task force to make assessments.
"It's good that he's doing this prep work to get all the state agencies in place because moving the state government can be a very slow process, said Assemblyman Henry T. Perea, (D) Fresno.
Assemblyman, Henry T. Perea, says setting the stage now will make everything flow much smoother later on.
"So that once the governor makes a declaration of emergency then all the resources are in place and we can move right away," said Assemblyman Perea.
State Senator, Andy Vidak, disagrees with the governor's approach. He believes the governor and president should declare an emergency right now.
"That would give the federal and state bureaucrats a little wiggle room where they could turn up the pumps a little bit and get some water to our farms which desperately need it because it's such a big part of our economy here in California," said Senator Andy Vidak, (R) Hanford.
Water shortage is a topic on many minds. So much so, a drought preparedness workshop was held at Fresno State on Tuesday to make sure growers are well informed of the conditions.
"We're looking forward to what hope is a wetter late winter and spring. But right now we should have close to 30% of our snow pack in the bank and it's not looking good through the end of December," said Bill Croyle, Dept. of Water Resources.
The silver lining is that farmers have been down this road before so each year they are adapting more. They are implementing conservation measures like drip irrigation to workaround the drought conditions.