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.
Time is running out to register for this month’s Water
101 Workshop in Sacramento where you’ll
go beyond the headlines and gain a deeper understanding of
how water is managed and moved across California. And come one,
come all to our annual Open
House & Reception on May 7!
California’s water managers have long looked for ways to adapt to a hotter, drier future where the impacts of climate change leave less water to meet the state’s needs.
At our annual Water 101 Workshopon March 26 in Sacramento, participants will hear from Joel Metzger, deputy director for statewide water resources planning, on efforts underway by the California Department of Water Resources to achieve a target of identifying 9 million acre-feet of additional water supply by 2040, roughly equal to the capacity of two Shasta Reservoirs.
The agenda for the workshop features some of the leading policy and legal experts in California who will detail the historical, legal and political facets of water management in the state. Seating is limited and filling up quickly, so don’t miss out!
Three weeks after Tahoe’s biggest snowstorm in decades, Donner
Summit has as much dirt as snow. Feet of powder quickly
disappeared, as rain and unusually warm temperatures depleted
gains from the February blizzard that had been cheered at the
time as a potential season-saving event. California’s
snowpack is already its lowest since 2015, and
record-shattering March heat arriving next week will make it
worse. The rate of melting is “unprecedented,” said Tim
Bardsley, a hydrologist at the National Weather Service office
in Reno. The entire snowpack, he said, has been wiped away
along sunny parts of the Lake Tahoe shoreline.
Other snowpack and water supply news around the West:
… Information from the Golden State Salmon Association and
the Pacific Fisheries Management Council forecasts a current
adult salmon ocean population of 392,349 in 2026 — more than
double last year’s ocean abundance estimate. The
Klamath River forecast also jumped to 176,233,
up from 82,672 in 2025. For comparison, the upper
Sacramento River saw a return of over 60,000 adult
salmon to natural spawning areas in 2025 compared to just over
4,000 in 2024. … The number of returning jacks is key to
forecasting the adult salmon population in the ocean now, which
informs how many salmon fishery managers will allow to be
caught this year. Both some commercial and sport fishing are
expected to be approved later this spring by the Pacific
Fishery Management Council.
In the midst of historic drought in the Rocky Mountains, many
water managers are looking for ways to get more moisture into
the environment. Some are considering things like cloud
seeding, which is meant to create more precipitation
in certain areas. It’s a technique that has been used for
decades in Colorado, Wyoming and Utah. Rain
Enhancement Technologies, a company that’s operated in Oman,
doesn’t use traditional cloud-seeding methods, which are
characterized by putting silver iodide particles into the
atmosphere. Instead, they do what they call “ionization cloud
seeding,” which uses high-voltage rays to ionize naturally
occurring aerosols in the atmosphere. Aerosols are necessary
for cloud formation, and therefore, precipitation.
For over 40 years, the U.S. Forest Service has been monitoring
high-altitude mountain lakes in Colorado to track the
environmental impacts of human-caused pollutants and climate
changes in delicate wilderness areas and
ecosystems. Mountain lakes are extremely sensitive, making
them a perfect testing ground for measuring ecosystem changes
in climate and the environment. … A study
[by researchers from the Forest Service and University of
Colorado Boulder] set out to determine whether
environmental changes — including climate change and air
pollution — have impacted the lakes’ chemistry and ecosystem
over time. … [T]his type of monitoring and data could help
answer questions about how this winter’s historically
low snowpack in Colorado could impact mountain
lakes.
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.
During California’s 2012–2016 drought, much of the state
experienced severe drought conditions: significantly less
precipitation and snowpack, reduced streamflow and higher
temperatures. Those same conditions reappeared early in 2021
prompting Gov. Gavin Newsom in May to declare drought emergencies
in watersheds across 41 counties in California.
