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.
Some people in California and across the West struggle to access
safe, reliable and affordable water to meet their everyday needs
for drinking, cooking and sanitation.
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As atmospheric rivers blasted across California this year, they
brought epic amounts of rain and snow follwing a three-year
drought.
Devastating and deadly floods hit parts of the state and now all
eyes are on the potential for more flooding, particularly in
the San Joaquin Valley as the record amount of snow in the
Sierras melts with warmer temperatures.
With anticipated sea level rise and other impacts of a changing
climate, flood management is increasingly critical in California.
Mark Arax, an award-winning
journalist and author of books chronicling agriculture and water
issues in California’s Central Valley, will provide the keynote
talk at an international groundwater conference next month.
Groundwater basins in California
and across the world are the source for much of the water that
grows our food. But many challenges come with groundwater:
Keeping use sustainable, nitrate contamination and impacts
from climate change.
The world’s top scientists, policymakers and experts will be
addressing these topics June 18-20 in San
Francisco at the
3ʳᵈ International Groundwater Conference Linking Science &
Policy, along with the latest advancements on
groundwater demand management, conjuctive use, managed aquifer
recharge, groundwater governance and emerging artificial
intelligence resources related to groundwater and agriculture.
The Biden administration has announced that Southern
California’s plan to build the largest wastewater recycling
plant in the nation will be supported by $99.2 million in
federal funds, an investment that officials said represents a
down payment toward making the region more resilient to the
effects of climate change. The proposed facility, called Pure
Water Southern California, is projected to cost $8 billion.
When completed, it will recycle enough wastewater to produce
150 million gallons of clean drinking water each day — enough
to supply about half a million homes. … Plans for the
facility in Carson call for taking treated wastewater that is
currently released to the ocean and purifying it using advanced
technologies to produce drinking water. That purified water
will be used to recharge groundwater and will also be sent
directly into the region’s distribution system to be mixed
with other supplies.
This current, remarkably average water year – not last year’s
barn burner – will be the true test to see how well
groundwater agencies are rejuvenating the San Joaquin Valley’s
withered aquifers, longtime water managers say. Yes, 2023’s
historic wet year did a lot to help groundwater levels rebound
in many parts of the valley. And the numbers were impressive:
453,000 acre feet of floodwater was captured for storage,
according to the state’s most recent semi-annual groundwater
report released this month. The valley captured 91% of the
state’s annual managed recharge, about 3.8 million acre
feet. Groundwater levels rose in 52% of monitoring wells
and stayed level in 44%. An area of about 800 square miles
saw ground uplift, 40 times more than uplifted in
2018-2022. But the state report notes even a record
breaking wet year isn’t enough to refill the aquifers and
groundwater deficit persists.
New predictions for the summer season, released by NOAA’s
Climate Prediction Center this week, show weather is likely to
heat up in almost every corner of the United States. The
forecast, which covers June, July and August, indicates nearly
every U.S. state with leaning toward a hotter-than-normal
summer season. The highest chances are found out West, where
Utah, Arizona, New Mexico and parts of Colorado have a 60% to
70% chance of above-average temperatures over the next three
months. … That could create drought conditions in a
region that isn’t faring too poorly now, but has struggled
with extreme drought in recent years. To make matters worse,
we’re heading into a La Niña pattern by late summer.
La Niña years are associated with drought conditions for the
southern half of the country, including Southern California and
the Southwest.
The former general manager of a San Joaquin Valley water
district, accused by federal prosecutors of carrying out one of
the most audacious and long-running water heists in California
history, pleaded guilty Tuesday to a version of the crime far
more muted than what prosecutors had laid out in their original
indictment. As part of a plea agreement negotiated with
prosecutors, Dennis Falaschi, 78, former longtime head of the
Panoche Water District, appeared in a Fresno federal courtroom
and pleaded guilty to one count of conspiring to steal water
from the government and one count of filing a false tax return.
The plea deal is a jarring twist in a case that has captivated
farmers in the San Joaquin Valley. In 2022, prosecutors accused
Falaschi of masterminding the theft of more than $25 million
worth of water out of a federal irrigation canal over the
course of two decades and selling it to farmers and other water
districts.
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.
