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.
The Water Education Foundation’s
2025 Annual
Reportis now available in an interactive,
digital format and recaps how we accomplished a lot of
“firsts” last year.
A standout moment was our first-ever Klamath River
Tour, where we brought 45 participants into the heart of
the watershed that underwent the nation’s largest dam removal
project.
President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Bureau of Reclamation
has landed at the agency. Aubrey Bettencourt, a Western
water and agriculture expert, is listed as principal
deputy commissioner for the bureau on Interior Secretary Doug
Burgum’s most recent order delegating leadership authorities.
The order also taps her to perform the duties of the
commissioner. The Interior Department did not immediately
respond to a request for comment. Last week, a White House
official confirmed to POLITICO that Bettencourt will be
nominated to lead Reclamation, although it has not yet been
sent to the Senate for consideration. The White House did not
immediately respond to a request for comment on the
nomination’s status.
The Ninth Circuit delivered a victory to the Yurok Tribe and
fishing advocates on Wednesday, affirming a lower court’s
finding that the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation must comply with
the Endangered Species Act when operating the Klamath
Irrigation Project. In a 2-1 decision, the appeals panel
held the Endangered Species Act applies to the
government’s operation of the Klamath Irrigation Project and
that the rights of Klamath Project water users are subject to
the requirements of the ESA. The panel largely
focused on the applicability of Section 7 of the ESA — which
requires federal agencies to ensure that agency action “is not
likely to jeopardize the continued existence of any endangered
species or threatened species or result in the destruction or
adverse modification of habitat of such species” — on the
Klamath Irrigation Project.
Building on years of progress, Governor Gavin Newsom today
announced that California is advancing the state’s Sites
Reservoir project with an additional $268.9 million funding
increase from the California Water Commission — strengthening
long-term water storage and helping prepare for a hotter, drier
future. … Sites Reservoir is a key component of the
Governor’s water strategy and will capture water from
the Sacramento River during wet seasons and store it for use
during drier seasons – holding up to 1.5 million
acre-feet of water, enough to supply over 4.5 million homes for
a year. … With this additional funding, the Sites
Project is eligible for a total of $1.363 billion in Water
Storage Investment Program (WSIP) funding from Proposition 1
and Proposition 4.
The Utah State Legislature took some initial steps to begin
regulating large-scale data centers in the state. On Wednesday,
the legislature’s Economic Development & Workforce Services
Interim Committee voted unanimously to open a bill file
to define in Utah State Code exactly what a large-scale data
center is. … Celebrity investor Kevin O’Leary’s
plans for a massive data center in Box Elder County has sparked
significant public uproar. … “We want to make sure
there are clear guidelines to protect the environment,” Rep.
[Paul] Cutler told FOX 13 News. “To make sure that data
centers, especially in the Great Salt Lake Basin, the
Colorado River Basin, there are strict
guidelines on water use.”
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.
