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.
The remaining handful of tickets
for our first-ever Klamath River Tour are now up
for grabs! This special water tour, Sept. 8 through Sept.
12, will not be offered every year so check out the tour
details here.
You don’t want to miss this opportunity to examine water issues
along the 263-mile Klamath River, from its spring-fed headwaters
in south-central Oregon to its redwood-lined estuary on the
Pacific Ocean in California.
Among the planned stops is the former site of Iron Gate Dam &
Reservoir for a firsthand look at restoration efforts. The dam
was one of four obsolete structures taken down in the nation’s
largest dam removal project aimed at restoring fish
passage. Grab your ticket here
while they last!
In December 2012, dam operators at Northern California’s Lake Mendocino watched as a series of intense winter storms bore down on them. The dam there is run by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ San Francisco District, whose primary responsibility in the Russian River watershed is flood control. To make room in the reservoir for the expected deluge, the Army Corps released some 25,000 acre-feet of water downstream — enough to supply nearly 90,000 families for a year.
For Mike Vickrey, a rancher in Wyoming’s Upper Green River
Valley, this summer delivered another harsh lesson about the
unpredictability of water in the arid West. Despite what
appeared to be a promising winter snowpack, Vickrey had to shut
off irrigation to his hay meadows about 10 days earlier than
normal. … Vickrey wonders if early water cutoffs are
here to stay as all the states in the Colorado River Basin
continue to negotiate how to manage Lake Mead
and Lake Powell downstream as less and less
water flows through a watershed stretching from the Wind River
Mountains to Mexico’s Sea of Cortez. … Lately, hay
production has fluctuated from around 2,500 tons in good years
down to 1,600 tons or less in bad years. That’s one reason
Vickrey is encouraging others to join him at an upcoming public
meeting in Pinedale, which is one of four outreach meetings
Wyoming officials are hosting next week to discuss the state’s
role in managing Colorado River water.
Sonoma County’s groundwater is quietly
vanishing beneath our feet, and the numbers are alarming. In
parts of Sonoma Valley, deep aquifers have plummeted nearly 100
feet in the last decade, according to recent reports from the
Sonoma Valley Groundwater Sustainability Agency (GSA). With
some wells dropping as much as eight feet per year, residents
and businesses alike have good reason to be worried. …
Drilling a new well can cost $50,000 or more, a financial blow
that smaller family-run vineyards find especially daunting.
Sonoma Valley has responded by expanding a recycled water
pipeline on the east side, delivering treated wastewater for
irrigation and reducing pressure on depleted aquifers.
… The county is experimenting with Aquifer Storage
and Recovery (ASR), injecting excess treated Russian River
water underground during rainy months, banking it for future
dry spells.
… More than half a century ago, when Republicans were still
running the state, Reagan brought CEQA
(pronounced ‘see-kwa’) into the world as a shield against
unintended consequences: a project that befouled waterways or
drove species toward extinction. But the law’s reach expanded
through a series of court rulings until it applied to
developments of all kinds, becoming a handy tool for almost
anyone to challenge a proposed project by demanding more
analysis and remediation. CEQA has long been a bogeyman
for Republicans and developers, a symbol of regulatory excess
and government dysfunction — and an expensive one at
that. … This summer, Newsom and like-minded
legislators did what was unthinkable just a few years ago: They
scaled the law back dramatically, exempting most urban housing
developments, along with daycares, manufacturing hubs and
clinics.
The UC Davis Tahoe Environmental Research Center today released
its “Tahoe: State of the Lake Report,” which presents data from
2024 in the context of the long-term record. … Highlights of
the report include data related to temperature, precipitation,
algae, water clarity and more. Lake Tahoe today generally
experiences higher air temperatures, more rain, less snow and
earlier snowmelt than it did 113 years ago, the report said.
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.
