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.
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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.
Mark your calendars! Registration will be opening soon for two
exciting Water Education Foundation events this fall.
Water Summit | Oct. 29
Join us for our premier event of
the year, bringing together leading policymakers and experts from
all sectors to discuss the most pressing water issues facing
California and the West.
For the past 20 years, the Colorado
River has been operated under a set of guidelines negotiated
between the seven states that depend on the river. Those
guidelines expire this year, and after five years of grinding
negotiations over a new agreement, the upstream states of
Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and New Mexico remain deadlocked against
the downstream states of California, Arizona and Nevada.
Some 40 million people and 5.5 million acres of farmland depend
on the river’s water. But after the states failed to meet two
federal deadlines in three months, the river is in a moment of
unprecedented crisis. A dire snowpack has left flows just 15
percent of normal, many farms without water and several cities
scrambling to secure water supplies as they gird themselves for
shortages.
After more than three years of negotiations among the seven
Colorado River Basin states, the federal government is
preparing to release its plan for managing the shrinking river.
The U.S. Department of the Interior and Bureau of Reclamation
say they expect to release the Final Environmental Impact
Statement for post-2026 Colorado River operations this week.
The document is expected to identify the federal
government’s preferred approach for operating Lake Mead and
Lake Powell after the current guidelines expire.
… An earlier draft examined five possible approaches but
did not identify a preferred alternative. The final document
should provide a clearer picture of the direction the Trump
administration intends to take.
A South Carolina federal judge ordered the Trump administration
to fund hundreds of environmental justice grants it illegally
canceled last year, a decision that could impact $20 million in
federal funding rescinded from the Walker River Paiute
Tribe in Nevada. … The federal climate program
was terminated in May 2025 following two executive orders
issued by President Donald Trump targeting funding for
renewable energy and diversity, equity and inclusion efforts at
the federal level. … In Nevada, the program’s termination
eliminated a $20 million EPA grant that would have
funded a multi-year climate resiliency plan to deliver
water, energy, and food infrastructure to about 1,200
tribal members who live on the Walker River Reservation. … A
portion of the grant was also earmarked for avital water infrastructure project to protect
health and safety on the reservation.
The official tally shows Kern County water districts are only
willing to chip in $11.7 million of $33 million
requested by the state toward the planning phase of
the so-called delta tunnel, according to figures presented at
the July 23 Kern County Water Agency meeting. The agency, which
administers the State Water Contract on behalf of 13 local
water districts, called “member units,” voted Thursday to
approve a funding agreement with the Department of Water
Resources that included the reduced amount for planning and
pre-construction costs of the 36-foot diameter Delta Conveyance
Project. That leaves DWR with a 20% funding gap in
the $300 million it needs for this phase.
From some parts of Highway 101, the Salinas Valley can look
like one long, uniform stretch of agricultural fields.
But the groundwater basins that lie beneath the surface tell a
different story, one of interconnectivity, fragmentation and
different interests depending what end of the valley you’re on.
Groundwater is the source for roughly 96% of all water used in
the Salinas Valley. For more than a century, it has been the
foundation for Monterey County’s agricultural industry. But as
generation after generation has sipped from thousands of straws
up and down the valley, groundwater levels have dropped
and the salty waters of Monterey Bay have seeped in to fill its
place. … The [Sustainable Groundwater
Management] act created the Salinas Valley Basin Groundwater
Sustainability Agency, which next month must decide on
a plan to stop the salty march.
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.
