He’d hoped the federal government would crank up its pumps and start sending water his way now that the Delta is flush with storm runoff in what’s so far been a remarkably wet fall and winter in much of Northern California.

Instead, to protect Delta smelt — a nearly extinct fish that’s come to symbolize California’s never-ending fight over water — regulators throttled back the pumps that supply drinking water to 25 million people from Silicon Valley to Orange County and millions of acres of farmland like Del Bosque’s.