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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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.
In December 2012, dam operators at Northern California’s Lake Mendocino watched as a series of intense winter storms bore down on them. The dam there is run by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ San Francisco District, whose primary responsibility in the Russian River watershed is flood control. To make room in the reservoir for the expected deluge, the Army Corps released some 25,000 acre-feet of water downstream — enough to supply nearly 90,000 families for a year.
Registration is now open for
the Water Education Foundation’s 41ˢᵗ annual
Water Summitfeaturing leading
policymakers and experts in conversation about the latest
information and insights on water in California and the West.
The Trump administration wants to zero out climate research at
the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA),
according to a newly released budget document. The
document calls for no funding to go to the agency’s climate
laboratories or regional climate data and information. It also
wants to zero out research at NOAA’s weather research program
and weather laboratories, as well as its tornado and severe
storm research. The budget document also calls for a shutdown
of weather and climate laboratories around the country,
including a lab in Mauna Loa, Hawaii, that tracks greenhouse
gas emissions and another in Miami whose research includes
hurricane studies. Overall, the document calls for
reducing the agency’s full-time staff by 2,061 people when
compared with fiscal 2024, a 17 percent cut.
Other climate research and weather forecasting news:
Colorado’s top water board unanimously agreed Tuesday to hear
out Front Range water operators’ concerns about a Western Slope
plan to purchase historic Colorado River water rights. The
Colorado River Water Conservation District, which represents 15
Western Slope counties, negotiated a $99 million deal to
purchase water rights tied to the century-old Shoshone Power
Plant, owned by a subsidiary of Xcel Energy. The River
District and the Front Range groups — Aurora Water, Denver
Water, Colorado Springs Utilities and Northern Water — all want
to maintain the historical flows past Shoshone to provide
predictable water supplies long into the future. They mainly
disagree about the amount of water involved. Front Range
providers say, if the number is too high, it could hamper their
ability to provide water to millions of people.
The Golden State’s tug-of-war between environmental advocacy
and a worsening housing crisis came to a head Monday evening
when Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law two bills that will
overhaul the landmark California Environmental Quality Act in
an effort to ease new construction in the state. The two pieces
of legislation, Assembly Bill 130 and Senate Bill 131, were
linchpins in the approval of a proposed $320-billion annual
state budget deal; the governor’s signature was conditional on
their passage. … “Today’s bill is a game changer,
which will be felt for generations to come,” the governor said
in a statement. Development experts agreed, saying it is among
the most significant reforms to CEQA in its 55-year history.
But its passage sparked fierce backlash from environmental
groups who say it marks a sweeping reversal of essential
protections for the state’s most vulnerable landscapes,
wildlife and communities.
California growers get the first news about how much water they
will get for their operations (each) year in late
February. … In over half of the past 24 years
… allocation updates — usually slight increases, but not
always — trickle in each month through the end of
June. … At the end of May, when the allocation for
South-of-Delta agricultural contractors went up from 50% to
55%, Allison Febbo, general manager for the Westlands Water
District, called the increase appreciated but disappointing
given the situation. The situation? Almost all of California’s
reservoirs were at or above their historic average levels at
the time. … “We’re looking at the various regulations on how
we can move water through the Central Valley Project to make
sure that, whenever we are cutting water supplies, it has a
meaningful benefit,” she says.
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.
