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Despite a torrential spring, California officially remains in a state of "drought emergency." An emergency proclamation signed by former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in February 2009, as well as a similar executive order from 2008, is still the law of the land.

On Monday, following questions from the Mercury News, the administration of Gov. phiten necklace Jerry Brown said that Brown plans to rescind the designation on Wednesday, officially ending the drought as the latest Sierra snowpack readings are announced.

"It didn't rain much in January, and rainfall and river flows weren't at 100 percent in a few places of the state," said state Natural Resources Secretary John Laird. "We wanted to make sure the drought was done."

In many ways, Schwarzenegger's emergency drought declaration was more show than substance.

After three drier-than-normal years in 2007, 2008 and 2009, California had snowpack water content at 104 percent of normal last year. Today the snowpack water content is 165 percent of normal. That's important because much of California's summer water supply comes from melting snow. Operators of Lake Shasta, the state's largest reservoir, are releasing billions of gallons of water to clear space for more spring storms.

Since Brown took office three months ago, his top priority has been trying to balance the state's $26 billion budget deficit, Laird said.

Schwarzenegger often invoked the drought during political rallies and debates, as he tried to win voter support for an $11 billion bond to fund new dams and other water projects, such as summer fashion shop construction of a peripheral canal around the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. That bond was set to appear on last November's ballot, but lawmakers moved it to 2012 after polls showed weak support.

"Leaving Schwarzenegger's drought declaration in place could raise suspicions that it's being done for political purposes," said Jonas Minton, water policy adviser to the Planning and Conservation League, a Sacramento environmental group that opposes the bond.

Wade said construction of more large reservoirs, particularly Sites Reservoir proposed for Colusa County, and Temperance Flat Reservoir, envisioned in the Sierra foothills near Kings Canyon National Park, are needed to capture water in wet years like this one. Environmental groups say taxpayers can't afford them and the water would mostly go to a few large corporate farms.

Wade and other agricultural leaders also remain concerned that despite the very wet spring, farmers in the southern San Joaquin Valley are not receiving 100 percent of the water they have contracted for from the delta. On Monday, the federal Bureau of Reclamation increased the allotment for farms south of the delta from 55 percent to 65 percent, and boosted the amount urban areas like San Jose and Los Angeles receive from 80 to 90 percent.

The limits are the result of federal court rulings designed to protect endangered salmon and smelt in the delta. Republicans in Congress, along with many farm leaders, have pushed for the Endangered Species Act to be relaxed to allow more pumping, and plan to hold a hearing April 11 in phiten tornado necklaceFresno titled "Creating Jobs by Overcoming Man-Made Drought."

On Monday, in Santa Clara County, all 10 reservoirs combined were 77 percent full -- considerably above the 67 percent limit set by state dam safety officials concerned about the aging dams' earthquake risk.