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State orders users to stop pumping water from streams
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SACRAMENTO (AP) — For the first time in nearly 40 years, drought-stricken California has ordered more than 2,600 water agencies and users in the Sacramento Valley to stop pumping water from streams.

The Sacramento Bee reports Friday  that the State Water Resources Control Board imposed the curtailment notice this week.

The notice affects water agencies, farms, cities and other property owners with so-called “junior” water rights, or those issued by the state after 1914. It extends to the Sacramento River and its many tributaries.

Major urban water providers such as the city of Sacramento are included, though most of the affected users are farmers and large irrigation districts.

The newspaper reports water cuts on this scale have not been ordered in California since the drought of 1977.