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.
Learn more about our team in the office and on the Board of
Directors and how you can support our nonprofit mission by
donating in someone’s honor or memory, or 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.
Start making arrangements now to attend our first-ever
Kern River Tour and annual Water
Summit so you don’t miss out. These popular fall
programs have limited seating and will fill up quickly!
Kern River Tour | November 4-6
Join us on this special journey as
we examine water issues along the Kern
River, from its mountain-fed headwaters in the
southern Sierra Nevada to its terminus in the Central Valley west
of Bakersfield. Among the planned stops are both upper forks of
the Kern River, Lake Isabella, lower Kern River canyon, the
Friant-Kern Canal, irrigated agriculture in the valley, the Kern
Water Bank and more. Click here for more
details.
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.
… Strong El Niños, despite oftentimes offering more
precipitation for California, also carry with them warmer
temperatures thanks to a warmer Pacific Ocean to the west. The
increased warmth of the sea will mean the difference between
rain and snow in many locations, especially in Northern
California where the warmth looks to be more pronounced.
Increased temperatures will push the rain-snow line
higher in the mountains than normal. That could be
felt in a few months time as less snow sticking the foothills.
That being accounted for, a strong signal for more snow
still emerges in the models at altitude. … This is
especially true for the Sierra and North Coast ranges, where
extra snowfall could come in the form of significantly
higher-than-normal totals in the high peaks.
The news of Lake Powell hitting a record low is triggering some
alarm bells on Utah’s Capitol Hill. On Saturday, Lake Powell
recorded its lowest elevation — 3,519.91 ft. That is currently
about 30 feet above the minimum power pool level. Any lower and
Glen Canyon Dam ceases to generate power. … During a
hearing on Tuesday before the Utah State Legislature’s Interim
Natural Resources Appropriations Subcommittee, [Colorado River
Authority of Utah Executive Director Amy] Haas outlined where
things are. … To prop up Lake Powell, the Bureau
of Reclamation has ordered up to a million acre-feet of water
to be released from Flaming Gorge upstream. … Asked
if it has been effective, Haas told FOX 13 News it is possible
the U.S. Department of the Interior orders more releases from
Flaming Gorge.
After years of planning and deliberation, water authorities in
the Salinas Valley voted to move forward with a more
than $1 billion portfolio of projects to address seawater
intrusion last week. The main component of the plan
involves pumping salt water out from where it has
seeped into coastal aquifers, running it through a
reverse osmosis plant and then reinjecting it to push the salt
water back coastwards. With a 9-2 approval vote by the Board of
Directors for the Salinas Valley Basin Groundwater
Sustainability Agency meeting on Aug. 13, the region took a
decisive step toward its state mandated requirement to bring
Salinas Valley groundwater into sustainability by 2040.
… As mandated by the 2014Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, the
extent of seawater intrusion must be pushed back to where it
was in 2017.
As the climate warms, some mountain trees are moving higher up,
while others are spreading downhill. Scientists say something
inside the trees may explain why. And that split could
reshape watersheds and wildfire risk. For years,
scientists have expected mountain trees to move upslope in
search of cooler conditions. But a new global study
found nearly one-third of tree species are moving
downhill instead. That matters because where
trees grow can affect how forests burn and how much water they
soak up before it flows downstream to rural
communities, cities and farms. So why are some trees moving in
one direction while others head the other way? The answer may
lie in how trees move water.
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.
