Coalinga is a city in Fresno County with a reported population of around 17,000. Its sole source of water is the federal Central Valley Project—a complex network of dams, canals and reservoirs that extends 400 miles through central California.

All told, it is designed to hold 12 million acre-feet of water, with one acre-foot being the amount of water needed to cover an acre of land with a foot of water.

This may sound like a lot of water, but the U.S. Southwest is experiencing a so-called megadrought that has persisted for over two decades. It has been considered the driest 22-year period in the area in around 1,200 years. It has taken a toll on water supplies.

In 2022, Coalinga was allocated 2,500 acre-feet of water according to The Washington Post—far short of the 10,000 acre-feet it normally gets.

Forced to cope with such a small supply, residents have been living with various restrictions on how water may be used. Watering lawns is only permitted on certain days, for example, and restaurants are only allowed to give customers water if they specifically ask for it.

Despite these measures, city officials estimated their federal supply was going to run out by November, and so they were forced to purchase more on the open market at eye-watering prices.

Adam Adkisson, Coalinga city councilman, told non-profit water news outlet SJV Water that the city had struck a deal to secure the water supply it needs to see it through the rest of this year for a price of $1,800 per acre-foot. In contrast, the city normally pays $130 per acre-foot for the federal supply, SJW Water reported on October 15.

If this ends up being a regular necessity, it is unclear how the city’s budget will cope.

Justin Mankin, assistant professor in the Department of Geography at Dartmouth College, told Newsweek the ongoing western drought was in “frightening territory” and “has revealed how poorly adapted our systems of water provision are.”

“The impacts of climate change disproportionately hurt the most vulnerable and poorest communities,” Mankin said. “Coalinga Canal sits as an offshoot of the Central Valley Project and it is not getting renewed allocations, like many regions in the Central Valley, though it certainly could in the future. But while the drought is the proximate cause, this drought is playing out on a landscape of water rights, where senior rights holders are able to price out low-income communities.

“The low levels in Lake Shasta, something like 53 percent of the historical average during this time of year, coupled with forecasts of below-average precipitation this winter, implies that this protracted state of crisis will continue.

“If Coalinga could pull together the funds, it could get additional water, but it has to pay and this is why the impacts associated with this drought are manifesting first in the communities that both need that water most, and have the fewest resources to seek alternate supply.”

Jay Lund, vice-director of the Center for Watershed Sciences and distinguished professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of California, Davis, told Newsweek it is “very rare for a well-run modern U.S. water system to run out of water”.

“There usually are many emergency water conservation actions a city can take to reduce use by up to 30 to 60 percent, such as banning outdoor water use. In addition, in California where there is often connection to a large aqueduct, cities often have made contingent contracts or other arrangements for additional supplies from others, at some expense.”