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Why is San Vicente Reservoir so full?

San Vicente's reservoir waterfalls are spilling in to help raise the water level, but what does that mean as we head into the Summer months?

After two years of above-average rainfall, the reservoirs in San Diego are at near capacity. 

San Vicente's reservoir waterfalls are spilling in to help raise the water level, but what does that mean as we head into the Summer months?

"Knowing how much we have now, so when the drought comes, we will be able to our community what it needs. The precipitation over the past couple of years has been substantially above normal from the previous and we've had 2 years back-to-back with unusually wet weather," said Eva Plajazer, Director of Operations and Maintenance for the San Diego Water Authority.

Plajzer says its investments in the infrastructure on the San Vincente dam height, completed in 2014 increased its capacity.

"We doubled the amount of water that can be stored in San Vincente Reservoir, and that was very important to us because now we're able to store quite a bit more water," Plajazer said. 

And that is especially important because of our climate.

"We are in a semi-arid region, and we will have a drought, it will come again, and we will be very well prepared," she said.

The dam at San Vicente is owned by the City of San Diego and co-managed by the Water Authority which says supplies look good ahead.

"Water usage is very important; you always want to be good stewards of the resources. We have, and currently do not have, any restrictions on water usage," Plajazer said.

That means all of our hard work is paying off when it comes to water consumption, which is down 50% from the late 1990's.  

"We are doing really well as far as water supplies are concerned," Plajazer said.

And because of the new construction that was completed back in 2014, the San Vicente Reservoir can hold almost two and a half times the amount of water, and with more coming in and more rain on the way that can only be good for San Diego.

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