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
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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.
Wade Crowfoot and Brenda Burman
lead an exciting line-up of water and policy experts who will be
speaking about Embracing Uncertainty in the
Westat our 2025 Water
Summit on Wednesday, Oct.
1, in downtown Sacramento.
Now in its 41ˢᵗ year, the event will once again gather
leading experts and top policymakers from California and
across the West for engaging conversations focused
on how to move forward with critical decisions despite myriad
unknowns facing the West’s most precious natural resource.
As previously announced, the day
will open with a keynote address from California Natural
Resources Secretary Wade Crowfoot. Secretary Crowfoot
oversees an agency charged with stewarding California’s rivers
and water supplies, including billions of dollars of public
investment to protect people and natural places from climate
change impacts.
Our 41ˢᵗ annual Water
Summit, an engaging day of discussions addressing
critical water issues in California and across the West, will be
held on Wednesday, Oct. 1, in Sacramento with the theme,
Embracing Uncertainty in the West.
Speakers and conversations will explore how to move forward with
critical decisions despite myriad unknowns facing our most
precious natural resource, including updates and insights
from leadership at both the state and federal levels in shaping
water resource priorities in California and across the West.
The California Department of Water Resources on Tuesday asked a
state appellate court to lift a preliminary injunction on
geotechnical investigations for the controversial Delta
Conveyance Project. … Last year, Sacramento County
Superior Court Judge Stephen Acquisto agreed with a group of
local counties and water districts, as well as environmental
and tribal organizations, that the preliminary work is a
“covered action,” and the state agency must certify that the
entire project complies with the requirements of the California
Delta Reform Act. The hourlong hearing … Tuesday revolved
around the question of whether the proposed preliminary work
itself, as opposed to the tunnel itself, is in fact a covered
action.
Western Slope water officials are asking for more time to
negotiate before the state decides whether influential Colorado
River water rights can be used to help the environment. A
state water agency, the Colorado Water Conservation Board, is
scheduled to make its final ruling Thursday on the future usage
of a pair of water rights tied to Shoshone Power Plant, owned
by an Xcel Energy subsidiary called Public Service of
Colorado. On Tuesday, the Xcel subsidiary and Colorado
River District — the Western Slope water entity leading the
effort to use the rights to help the environment — filed an
11th-hour extension to delay the ruling to November.
Ferocious overpumping that has caused huge swaths of the San
Joaquin Valley to sink, damaging key water arteries including
the Friant-Kern Canal and California Aqueduct must stop,
according to the Department of Water Resources (DWR). It’s one
of the main reasons the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act
(SGMA) was passed in 2014. After 11 years, though, not much has
slowed the sinking, other than a few good, wet years, prompting
the state to issue proposed subsidence guidelines that leave no
doubt how serious DWR is about the issue.
California voters approved Proposition 4 last year. It will
yield $10 billion to pay for environmental projects and
programs. Of that total, $50 million is earmarked to spend on
water quality projects in the polluted Tijuana River. … San
Diego Supervisor Paloma Aguirre flew to Sacramento to ask the
State Water Resources Control Board on Tuesday for the full $50
million. … But Calexico Mayor Diana Nuricumbo said that
her city is relying on its share of the $50 million to pay for
upgrades to its wastewater treatment plant, which
processes and cleans wastewater before discharging it into the
New River.
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.
