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.
There are many ways to support our nonprofit mission by donating
in someone’s honor or memory, 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.
Lois Henry, a journalist who
launched SJV
Water as a nonprofit news site devoted to
covering water in the San Joaquin Valley, was named the
2024 recipient of the Water Education Foundation’s Rita
Schmidt Sudman Award for Excellence in Water Journalism.
Henry said she was honored to receive the award, which
acknowledges outstanding work that illuminates complicated
water issues in California and the West.
“I’m grateful and humbled to receive this recognition,” Henry
said. “Water is such an arcane and politically rife topic. We
really strive to explain what’s happening in layman’s terms and
walk an unbiased line. So, it’s exciting to know our work has hit
the mark and provided value to our readers.”
Registration closes Friday for our
2024 Water
Summit, set for next Wednesday, Oct.
30, in downtown Sacramento with conversations focused on
our theme, Reflecting on Silver Linings in Western
Water.
Aquafornia is off Monday, Nov. 11, in observance of
Veterans Day but will return with a full slate of water
news on Nov. 12. Meanwhile, follow us on Twitter where we post
breaking water news. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram,
and LinkedIn.
California’s massive water projects, its authority to clean its
air, federal support for offshore wind and disaster aid for
wildfires all depend on cooperation with the new Trump
administration. … Trump’s reelection has unnerved
environmental groups that are watching over the Sacramento-San
Joaquin River Delta and its imperiled fish. At stake are the
state’s massive projects that bring Northern California water
south to farmers and cities. In 2016, Trump
famously scorned California for wasting water by
allowing its major rivers to reach the ocean. More recently, at
a September campaign speech in Rancho Palos Verdes, Trump said
he will increase the amount of water these projects deliver,
promising Southern Californians “more water than almost anybody
has.”
Top state negotiators working on an agreement to guide the
future of the drought-ravaged Colorado River said they don’t
expect that the looming shift in control of the White House
will derail the process for drafting a long-term operating
plan. President-elect Donald Trump’s victory this week means
there soon will be new people in top jobs at the Interior
Department and the Bureau of Reclamation, which plays a
decisive role in brokering an agreement and could impose its
own view if participating states don’t come to a consensus. But
this might be one area where the shift in administration won’t
change much, negotiators said.
… According to Dr. Josh Fisher, a climate scientist at
Chapman University, many factors came together to result in the
wildfire moving quickly as it tore up hillsides, moving upwards
as it burned through Ventura County neighborhoods. “That fire
will spread faster up just because fire moves upwards,” Fisher
said. “So, we’ve got these conditions of the topography, the
wind and the plants — and also close to roads and human
property — all just kind of coming together to make this a lot
worse than it could’ve been if the winds were calm, the
vegetation was wet.” Friday, wind gusts will relax
more.
Related climate change, drought and weather articles:
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.