According to the latest report from the US Drought Monitor, two of the state's largest reservoirs — Shasta Lake and Lake Oroville — are at "critically low levels."
Whenever I look into this a little it looks like that's correct - for instance, you can check out the charts here:
https://ourworldindata.org/environmental-impact-milks
It is worth noting that you can grow almonds in a lot fewer climates than you can raise dairy cows. California is uniquely suited to growing almonds in North America, but also one of the more water stressed places there, so almond farming is pretty problematic.
On the other hand, if you're raising dairy cows anywhere near the Great Lakes or other places with huge freshwater reserves, the issue really isn't their water use because it's just so abundant there; in those cases the environmental impact of dairy farming is much more in the greenhouse gas emissions which are enormous compared to all plant milks.
Whenever I look into this a little it looks like that's correct - for instance, you can check out the charts here: https://ourworldindata.org/environmental-impact-milks
It is worth noting that you can grow almonds in a lot fewer climates than you can raise dairy cows. California is uniquely suited to growing almonds in North America, but also one of the more water stressed places there, so almond farming is pretty problematic.
On the other hand, if you're raising dairy cows anywhere near the Great Lakes or other places with huge freshwater reserves, the issue really isn't their water use because it's just so abundant there; in those cases the environmental impact of dairy farming is much more in the greenhouse gas emissions which are enormous compared to all plant milks.