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.
Tom Gibson, new director of
California’s Department of Water Resources, will serve as the
keynote speaker for our 42ⁿᵈ annual Water
Summit on Oct. 29.
Guided by this year’s theme, Stewarding a New Era in
Western Water,Gibson and
other leading policymakers and experts will address emerging
topics related to the challenges and opportunities facing water
resource management in California and the West.
Gibson,
an attorney who has held several roles in the state’s Natural
Resources Agency and its various departments, was appointed by
Gov. Newsom on June 29 and sworn in on July 6 to lead DWR and its
nearly 4,000 employees.
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.
Farmers and ranchers in a rural Mendocino County valley have
long opposed the planned removal of two local dams because it
would reduce their summer irrigation supply. … The latest
reality check came Monday, when federal energy regulators
rejected the Elsinore Valley Municipal Water District’s attempt
to formally join the case deciding the dams’ fate. The Federal
Energy Regulatory Commission determined that the Southern
California water district, which has floated the possibility of
buying and operating the dams itself, showed up too late. The
rejection does not kill the water district’s gambit entirely,
nor the hopes of the dams’ new political allies. But it
captures a central problem in the world of California water
politics: the dam’s defenders have plenty of newfound
influence, but still no clear path to keeping the
infrastructure in place.
Small farms across the state may not be able to comply with
groundwater regulations and stay in business, according to a
new report analyzing the impact of California’s Sustainable
Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) on small-scale farms.
In the first-ever assessment of small farmer
consideration in California groundwater regulations,
researchers at the University of California Small Farms Network
and the Community Alliance with Family Farmers document the
challenges facing small-scale farms with groundwater
regulations. The report “Managing Groundwater with Small
Farms in Mind: Risks, Barriers and Opportunities in the
Sustainable Groundwater Management Act” (PDF) warns
that farmers need an approach that helps them understand and
adapt to the new regulations – while safeguarding their ability
to grow food for California consumers.
Nevada is expected to give up more than a quarter of its
allocated Colorado River water — 84,000 acre-feet — over the
next two years under a federal operating framework plan
that cuts distributions to three states and is expected to be
officially released this week. Nevada holds by far the
smallest share of the Colorado River of any of the three Lower
Basin states — just 300,000 acre-feet, compared with Arizona’s
2.8 million and California’s 4.4 million. And it uses less than
it is allocated — only about 212,000 acre-feet of its
allocation in 2024, according to the Southern Nevada Water
Authority (SNWA), recycling the vast majority of its
water and sending it back to Lake Mead for
credit. That restraint hasn’t been enough to
escape the reckoning.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Environmental
Protection Agency are working together on their largest cleanup
collaboration in more than 15 years at Lava Cap Mine in Nevada
City. The site, contaminated with arsenic and other toxic
materials from decades of gold and silver mining,
requires a massive water treatment system to protect
surrounding communities and wildlife. Col. Robert
McTighe, commander of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, said
the Corps does a lot of work with the EPA, but not to this
particular size and magnitude. The Corps is building the filter
system, which allows them to filter the water, treat the water
and then send the clean water back into the water system,
McTighe said.
Other water quality and treatment news around the West:
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.
