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.
The company Cadiz Inc. has been trying for years to pump
groundwater in the Mojave Desert and ship it to thirsty cities
in California. Now, the Trump administration has signed off on
part of its plan: converting an oil and gas pipeline to
transport water across the desert. The federal Bureau
of Land Management released documents Thursday saying the
company’s plan to repurpose 162 miles of the pipeline to
transport water “will not significantly affect” the
environment. … Environmental advocates and leaders of
Native tribes, who have been fighting the project, criticized
the decision by the Bureau of Land Management, saying
it threatens natural springs and wildlife habitat in
the desert.
After emerging in June, El Niño is now gathering power in
the Pacific Ocean. A new outlook released on Thursday
shows an 81% chance that El Niño, the climate
pattern that generally brings a wet winter to California along
with a cascade of global weather impacts, will rank as
“very strong” from October through December. The
forecast, a monthly memo from the National Weather Service’s
Climate Prediction Center, also expects that El Niño conditions
will linger through early spring 2027. The new report expressed
more confidence than June’s that the event will ultimately fall
into the strongest of four categories. … In
California, the El Niño pattern tips the odds in favor of a
wetter winter season, especially in the southern part of the
state. … California’s skiers and snowboarders can
expect increased chances ofa higher
snowpack in the Sierra Nevada.
A federal judge declined on Thursday to halt Northern
California water infrastructure projects that a group of
environmental nonprofits say will harm several vulnerable fish
species. Denying a temporary restraining order, U.S. District
Judge Jennifer Thurston said neither the plaintiffs — the
Center for Biological Diversity, the San Francisco Baykeeper
and Friends of the River — nor the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation
provided her an argument on how to interpret the terms of a
Endangered Species Act biological opinion for the
Central Valley Project. … In their March
lawsuit, the three environmental organizations say the
projects threaten fish like the Chinook salmon, steelhead trout
and Northern American green sturgeon.
… Over 70% of the 11 states that make up the region are in
drought, with over half of the region in severe, extreme or
exceptional drought, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.
That’s after most of the region experienced record-low or
extremely below-average snowpacks, thanks to record-warm
temperatures leading to more rainfall in areas that normally
receive snow. Western Colorado and southwestern
Idaho have some of the worst conditions. All
parts of Utah are in drought, with nearly 95% of the
state in at least severe drought, including over 40% of the
state remaining in extreme or exceptional drought.
California is a rare exception, with only 5%
of the Golden State in drought — although half of it remains
“abnormally dry.”
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.
