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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Directors and how you can support our nonprofit mission by
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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.
Time is running out to register for this month’s Water
101 Workshop in Sacramento where you’ll
go beyond the headlines and gain a deeper understanding of
how water is managed and moved across California. And come one,
come all to our annual Open
House & Reception on May 7!
California’s water managers have long looked for ways to adapt to a hotter, drier future where the impacts of climate change leave less water to meet the state’s needs.
At our annual Water 101 Workshopon March 26 in Sacramento, participants will hear from Joel Metzger, deputy director for statewide water resources planning, on efforts underway by the California Department of Water Resources to achieve a target of identifying 9 million acre-feet of additional water supply by 2040, roughly equal to the capacity of two Shasta Reservoirs.
The agenda for the workshop features some of the leading policy and legal experts in California who will detail the historical, legal and political facets of water management in the state. Seating is limited and filling up quickly, so don’t miss out!
… The Bureau of Reclamation’s latest most probable forecast
for Lake Powell shows it sinking below “power pool” — 3,490
feet — by December. At that level, water can’t make it through
the turbines at Glen Canyon Dam that generate hydropower and
keep the lights on across Utah and six other states.
… To prop up Powell, the bureau will likely rely on
another popular Utah reservoir: Flaming Gorge. The reservoir
that straddles the border of Utah and Wyoming has the best
water outlook in the basin, at 64% of normal, according to the
forecast center.
There was no reason for the hydrologists who help predict the
annual water supply for metro Phoenix to visit
the snow survey site here until the last week of February.
Until a storm passed through heading into that week, there had
been no snow to speak of. … The federal government’s
Colorado Basin River Forecast Center’s March report noted much
of the drainage, especially in the mountains of
Colorado and Utah, had experienced their worst snowpack since
at least 1981. … The warmth that pervaded the West
had melted much of the existing snowpack or caused it to fall
as rain instead, encouraging evaporation and plant uptake and
reducing the amount that will reach reservoirs this spring and
summer.
Other snowpack and water supply news around the West:
The Tuolumne County Board of Supervisors will meet on Tuesday,
March 10, to consider sending a formal request to Governor
Gavin Newsom for $6.3 million in state funding for a critical
water infrastructure project. The funding would support
construction of the Sierra Pines Raw Water Reservoir, a
shovel-ready project designed to protect public health, fire
safety, and disaster response. The request follows severe
damage to the Pacific Gas and Electric Main Tuolumne
Canal during a multi-day winter storm on Feb. 17. More
than 200 trees fell onto the canal, damaging wooden flumes and
forcing PG&E to halt water flows. The interruption cut off
95% of Tuolumne Utilities District’s drinking water
supply.
A large-scale pilot project studying the effects of recharging
water onto pistachio orchards, some with cover crops and some
without, is in full swing across the San Joaquin
Valley. The project, a collaboration between private
nonprofit Sustainable Conservation, American Pistachio Growers
and Fresno State University kicked off in January and will
study recharge on six orchards in Tulare, Merced and Madera
counties. Each pilot partner recharges onto 20 acres of orchard
with cover crops and 20 acres with no cover crops. …
Specifically, the project will look at whether recharge
cover crops can reduce nitrates in groundwater.
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.
