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.
Register today for the return
of our Bay-Delta
Tour May 7-9 as we venture into the most critical
and controversial water region in California. Get a firsthand
look at the state’s vital water hub and hear directly from
experts on key issues affecting the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta
and San Francisco Bay.
The 720,000-acre network of islands and channels supports
the state’s two large water systems – the State Water Project and
the federal Central Valley Project – and together with the San
Francisco Bay is an important ecological resource. You’ll learn
firsthand how the drought is affecting water quality and supply
that serves local farms, cities and habitat. Much of
the water also heads south via canals and aqueducts to provide
drinking water for more than 27 million Californians and
irrigation to about 3 million acres of farmland that helps feed
the nation.
Gain a deeper understanding of
water in California by attending our annual Water 101
Workshop in April as experts go over the
history, hydrology and law behind the state’s most precious
natural resource.
But you don’t have to wait until the workshop at McGeorge
School of Law in Sacramento to get up to speed on important water
issues.
Several feet of snow is anticipated to blanket California’s
mountains this week, prompting the National Weather Service to
warn of “the strongest storm of the season” so far in the
Sierra Nevada. A powerful low-pressure system will move toward
Cape Mendocino on Thursday, farther south than many previous
storms this winter. The proximity of the storm means its cold
front will remain intact as it moves from Lake Tahoe toward
Mammoth Mountain and Yosemite National Park on Thursday
afternoon. Heavy snow is expected along this cold front, with
hourly accumulations of 2 to 4 inches and intense winds
creating periods of “zero visibility,” according to the weather
service.
Nearly 170,000 people live in Altadena, Pasadena and Sierra
Madre at the foot of the San Gabriel Mountains, and many are
potentially in the path of debris flows. Heavy rainfall
expected on Thursday and Friday has triggered warnings about
fire-scarred hillsides unleashing torrents of mud, boulders and
debris from the torched slopes. The National Weather Service
issued a flash flood watch for late Thursday, with the greatest
risks in areas burned by the Eaton, Palisades, Franklin, and
Bridge fires. In Santa Barbara, people in the Lake Fire’s burn
areas were told to prepare to evacuate as a storm approaches
today.
Meta has become the latest global technology company to
participate in an innovative water replenishment initiative
aimed at addressing water scarcity in the Colorado River Basin.
Through a new partnership with FIDO Tech, Meta will provide
funding for the deployment of FIDO AI, an advanced leakage
detection system, across 300 kilometers of clean water pipeline
network in the City of Farmington. This initiative, set to run
for ten years, is expected to reduce water loss and enhance
local water resilience. The project is part of FIDO Plus, an
award-winning partnership model under Water United—a newly
established public-private coalition focused on developing
watershed-level solutions for water scarcity.
A proposal to change some of the goals of California’s
$90-million farmland retirement program has literally stopped
numerous projects in their tracks. … The program
always included “benefits to disadvantaged communities” as part
of a laundry list of goals, including reducing groundwater use;
helping move regions toward groundwater sustainability;
increasing long-term repurposing of marginal ag lands; and
supporting drought relief; among others. But Dec. 20, the
(Department of Conservation) proposed changes stating that each
project must include “meaningful” benefits for disadvantaged
communities.
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.