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.
A new aquatic invader, the golden mussel, has penetrated California’s ecologically fragile Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, the West Coast’s largest tidal estuary and the hub of the state’s vast water export system. While state officials say they’re working to keep this latest invasive species in check, they concede it may be a nearly impossible task: The golden mussel is in the Golden State to stay – and it is likely to spread.
Register today for the return
of our Bay-Delta
Tour May 7-9 as we venture into the most critical
and controversial water region in California. Get a firsthand
look at the state’s vital water hub and hear directly from
experts on key issues affecting the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta
and San Francisco Bay.
The 720,000-acre network of islands and channels supports
the state’s two large water systems – the State Water Project and
the federal Central Valley Project – and together with the San
Francisco Bay is an important ecological resource. You’ll learn
firsthand how the drought is affecting water quality and supply
that serves local farms, cities and habitat. Much of
the water also heads south via canals and aqueducts to provide
drinking water for more than 27 million Californians and
irrigation to about 3 million acres of farmland that helps feed
the nation.
After an unusually dry January where most of Northern
California went without rain for 27 days in a row, the storms
have come fast and furious, dramatically improving the state’s
water-supply outlook. So much rain fell in the first week of
February that California’s largest reservoir, Shasta Lake, near
Redding, rose 22 feet. Shasta Lake is 34 miles long. The
watershed at the state’s second-largest, Lake Oroville, in
Butte County, has received 24 inches of rain in the past two
weeks — five times the historical average — sending the
reservoir level up 23 feet from Feb. 1 to Feb. 7. And now a new
atmospheric river storm is forecast to soak the Bay Area and
the rest of the state Thursday and Friday.
Heavy rain is expected to sweep across Southern California on
Thursday, raising the risk of flash flooding and mudflows in
and around recent wildfire burn areas. Small mudflows were
previously observed around the Palisades burn scar from last
week’s storm, but Thursday’s storm will present a more
pronounced risk. Thursday could be the wettest day in Los
Angeles since February 2024, according to National Weather
Service forecasts, with 2 to 3 inches of rain expected.
Sens. Mark Kelly and Ruben Gallego are asking the Bureau of
Reclamation to ensure projects for Colorado River preservation
will still get their funding. The Bureau of Reclamation has
already signed off on money for projects across Arizona —
including an $86 million agreement to build a recycled water
plant in Tucson in exchange for the city taking less Colorado
River water over the next 10 years. But in a letter to the
agency this week, the lawmakers say their constituents are
reporting funding for some of that work has been paused amid
the Trump administration’s efforts to freeze federal funding.
Officials from three counties and the Round Valley Indian
Tribes have reached a historic agreement that paves the way for
continued diversions from the Eel River to bolster flows in the
Russian River. The agreement represents a critical development
for anyone whose water comes from the Russian River. The
complex accord resulted from years of negotiations to preserve
supplemental flows in the Russian River, the water lifeline for
residents, ranchers and wildlife in Sonoma and Mendocino
counties. The agreement also supports the restoration and fish
recovery in the Eel River, which was crucial to securing
support from environmental interests, tribes and Humboldt
County residents.
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.