Watch our series of short videos on the importance of the
Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, how it works as a water hub for
California and the challenges it is facing.
When a person opens a spigot to draw a glass of water, he or she
may be tapping a source close to home or hundreds of miles away.
Water gets to taps via a complex web of aqueducts, canals and
groundwater.
Learn more about our team in the office and on the Board of
Directors and how you can support our nonprofit mission by
donating in someone’s honor or memory, or becoming a regular
contributor or supporting specific projects.
Unlike California’s majestic rivers and massive dams and
conveyance systems, groundwater is out of sight and underground,
though no less plentiful. The state’s enormous cache of
underground water is a great natural resource and has contributed
to the state becoming the nation’s top agricultural producer and
leader in high-tech industries.
A new era of groundwater management began in 2014 in California
with the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act. The landmark law
turned 10 in 2024, with many challenges still ahead.
Our 42ⁿᵈ annual Water
Summit, an engaging day of discussions addressing
critical water issues in California and across the West, will be
held on Thursday, Oct. 29, in Sacramento with the theme,
Stewarding a New Era in Western Water.
Speakers and conversations will highlight emerging topics related
to the challenges and opportunities facing management of the
West’s most precious natural resource.
Lively conversations will focus on topics such
as:
The mandate to identify 9 million acre-feet of additional
water supply in California by 2040
The need for clarity in the ongoing AI/data center discourse
related to water resources management
The latest developments in desalination efforts and their
implications for the arid West
A full agenda will be posted soon, and speakers
include:
Joel Metzger | Deputy Director, Statewide
Water Resources Planning, California Department of Water
Resources
Sandi Matsumoto | California Water Program
Director, The Nature Conservancy
Cannon Michael | President, Bowles
Farming
Craig Miller | General Manager, Western
Municipal Water District
Dave Pederson | General Manager, Las Virgenes
Municipal Water District
As previously announced,
the day will open with a keynote address from Tom
Gibson, the new director of California’s Department of
Water Resources. An attorney who has held several roles in
the state’s Natural Resources Agency and its various departments,
Gibson was appointed by Gov. Newsom on June 29 and sworn in on
July 6 to lead DWR and its nearly 4,000 employees.
As your summer adventures wrap up, be sure to reserve your spot
for our popular fall programs. Seating is limited and will fill
up quickly!
Water Summit | October 29
Our 42ⁿᵈ
annual Water Summit is the Foundation’s
premier event of the year and returns to Sacramento October 29
with leading policymakers and experts addressing critical water
issues in California and across the West.
Just one year after the signing of Senate Bill 72, the Summit will
feature a panel discussion of California’s 2028 Water
Plan Update as it undergoes a legislatively
mandated shift from being just a guidance document to a blueprint
providing a framework for implementation of actions.
The huge inland body of water that is the heart of California’s
water system is under major stress. That’s why state officials
say they worked for years to come up with a plan to help halt
the ecological decline of the San Francisco Bay and
Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. Now that plan is
under attack from the Trump administration and the largest
irrigation authority in the Central Valley. In a letter,
the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation says California’s plan
for the Delta will shortchange farmers by restricting how much
water the federal government pumps from the state’s largest
rivers. The letter says the plan threatens the “entire
fabric of California’s agricultural economy.”
The drama engulfing the seven states in the Colorado River
Basin could take another, more perilous, turn in a few weeks.
Water experts are warning that by October, the river’s
flow may cross a critical threshold at Lee’s Ferry, a
bend in the river in Arizona that has been a bellwether of the
river’s health for decades. The 1922 Colorado River Compact —
the river’s foundational agreement — states that the river’s
flow must stay above a certain level at Lee’s Ferry in order to
provide enough water for downstream states. If the flow
falls below that point, which some experts equate to a
“tripwire,” it could trigger prolonged and expensive
litigation at the Supreme Court, a turning point that
could have terrible consequences for basin states.
The sea level along California’s coast will increase by
about a foot by mid-October due to the influence of El
Niño, which is driving a large volume of water
northward from offshore of Mexico and Central America. This
water is coming in the form of a coastal “Kelvin wave,” and it
will mark the arrival of one of the first significant impacts
of the powerhouse El Niño taking shape in the tropical Pacific.
… Patrick Barnard, research director at the Center for
Coastal Climate Resilience at the University of California,
Santa Cruz, said the ocean height increase puts many
coastal residents at risk of flooding. “Because so
many of our communities are built right at sea level on the
West Coast, and our extreme water levels don’t vary widely,
every 2 to 4 inches of sea level doubles our flood risk,”
Barnard said.
Turn on a hose in Denver this summer and the
water likely flows from the Strontia Springs
Reservoir. The small manmade lake in the mountains
just west of downtown stores the state’s precious snowmelt and
distributes it through the dry months, when rain grows scarce
and farmers are irrigating frantically. But over its 44 years,
Strontia has lost much of its ability to store water.
The reservoir is now almost one-fifth full of sediment
— sand, silt and mud. Most of the country’s 90,000 or
so storage reservoirs are facing a similar problem. These dams
are in a self-propelling sediment loop. Climate change is
exacerbating drought and wildfires, destroying plants that hold
soil in place. … The country has lost an
estimated 8% of its water storage capacity, the
equivalent of 25.5 million Olympic-size swimming pools,
according to a study published this week in Nature.
Operated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the
Bay Model is a giant hydraulic replica of San Francisco
Bay and the Sacramento-San Joaquin
Delta. It is housed in a converted World II-era
warehouse in Sausalito near San Francisco.
Hundreds of gallons of water are pumped through the
three-dimensional, 1.5-acre model to simulate a tidal ebb
and flow lasting 14 minutes.
As part of the historic Colorado
River Delta, the Salton Sea regularly filled and dried for
thousands of years due to its elevation of 237 feet below
sea level.
The most recent version of the Salton Sea was formed in 1905 when
the Colorado River broke
through a series of dikes and flooded the seabed for two years,
creating California’s largest inland body of water. The
Salton Sea, which is saltier than the Pacific Ocean, includes 130
miles of shoreline and is larger than Lake Tahoe.
Drought — an extended period of
limited or no precipitation — is a fact of life in California and
the West, with water resources following boom-and-bust patterns.
No portion of the West has been immune to drought during the last
century and it occurs with much greater frequency in the West
than in any other region of the country.
