The San Francisco Bay (Bay) drains water from 40 percent of
California. This includes flows originating from the Sierra
Nevada mountain range and the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers
that make their way down through Sacramento-San Joaquin Bay Delta
through the Bay to the Pacific Ocean.
The Bay is the largest harbor on the U.S. Pacific Coast and
covers about 400 square miles with an average depth of 14 feet.
Its deepest point is 360 feet at the Golden Gate.
Every year, more than 67 million tons of cargo pass through the
Golden Gate. The Bay also supports commercial bait shrimp,
herring and Dungeness crab fisheries.
The Bay is a vital estuary and a key link in the Pacific Flyway,
and millions of waterfowl use the shallow portions of the bay as
a refuge each year.
In recent years, thick layers of cyanobacteria—commonly known
as blue-green algae—have closed popular local swimming spots
Lake Anza and Lake Temescal for weeks at a time. Last summer, a
toxic algae bloom in the San Francisco Bay killed thousands of
fish. Although algae is always present in some quantity in
lakes and the bay, higher temperatures, stagnant water, and
excessive nutrient levels can cause the algae to multiply. If
the particular species has toxins in it, such as blue-green
algae or the Heterosigma akashiwo species that bloomed in the
bay last summer, the water can become unsafe for humans and
animals. Algae blooms and cyanobacteria have become state and
nationwide problems. In the Bay Area, water managers were
beginning to wonder if the extreme drought conditions of recent
years had pushed the problem into a dangerous new phase in
local waters.
Nothing says the end of drought like ending water restrictions
— and the pesky drought surcharges on utility bills. On the
heels of California’s remarkably wet winter, the Bay Area’s
biggest water agencies, including the San Francisco Public
Utilities Commission and East Bay Municipal Utility District,
have either rescinded their drought policies or are about to do
so. This means, in many places, no more fines for using too
much water, no more limiting outdoor watering to certain days
of the week and no more drought surcharges. The surcharges were
commonly adopted by water agencies to fill gaps in revenue as
water sales dropped amid rising conservation.
The Lake Merritt Institute, a nonprofit that helps to clean and
monitor the health of Lake Merritt in Oakland, says the recent
rains in the Bay Area have sent lots of fresh water and
pollution into Lake Merritt. The weather-related changes have
also stoked fears that the fish die-off in the lake last summer
could repeat this summer. The Lake Merritt Institute is ramping
up fundraising efforts in hopes of curbing conditions that
could fuel a repeat die-off. In the summer of 2022, thousands
of dead fish washed up in Lake Merritt as a “red tide” algae
bloom spread in the lake and across the surrounding San
Francisco Bay. At Lake Merritt, visitors reported strong smells
from all the dead fish, and crews had to scoop the dead fish up
and out of the water. Visitors reported seeing striped bass,
top smelt, crabs, and even bat rays among the dead wildlife.
Looking out from a downtown San Francisco rooftop, Epic
Cleantec co-founder and CEO Aaron Tartakovsky says you can
actually see the future of recycled water. “This is not
theoretical, it’s happening right now. It’s happening here,
it’s happening in the Chorus building, where we’re going to be
operating that system. And it’s happening in a third building
over here,” says Tartakovsky, pointing a short distance away.
Epic Cleantec is harnessing the used wastewater from high-rise
buildings, and giving it a second life, with a dizzying array
of technologies. … At the heart of the system lies a
control center that monitors everything from the amount of
energy being saved to the amount of wastewater being recovered.
Ryan Pully is the director of water reuse operations.
Places in the United States where the water table is inching
higher — along the coasts, yes, but also inland, in parts of
the Midwest — are already beginning to experience problems with
infrastructure. Cracks in aging and poorly maintained pipes are
being inundated, leaving plumbing unable to carry away
stormwater and waste. Pavement is degrading faster. Trees are
drowning as the soil becomes soupier, starving their roots of
oxygen. During high tides and when it rains, groundwater is
even reaching the surface and forming temporary ponds where
there never used to be flooding. … In the San Francisco Bay
Area, rising groundwater threatens to spread contamination that
can evaporate and rise into the air inside homes, schools, and
workplaces.
A planned wetland in far eastern Contra Costa County is not
likely to affect the nearby groundwater, a new report concludes
– but it remains to be seen if that will sway some neighbors
who fear the project could harm their drinking water drawn from
wells. The 645-acre wetland project aims to curb potential
flooding and poor stormwater quality while fending off
encroaching development and improving habitat for threatened
wildlife such as red-legged frogs, fairy shrimp and burrowing
owls. The undertaking, officially called the Knightsen Wetland
Restoration Project, is spearheaded by the East Contra Costa
Habitat Conservancy and the East Bay Regional Parks District,
which bought the land in 2016.
Ideas flowed at a recent forum on how to manage Napa Valley
water, which is the lifeblood for local cities, world-famous
wine country and the environment. Save Napa Valley Foundation —
formerly Growers/Vintners for Responsible Agriculture — and
other groups put on the Napa Water Forum. It took place Friday,
March 24 in the Native Sons of the Golden West building in
downtown Napa. … [W]ater runs from local mountains in
streams to the Napa River, giving life to fish and other
aquatic life. The Napa River runs for about 50 miles from Mount
St. Helena through the Napa Valley to San Pablo Bay. Some
water is captured behind dams that form reservoirs for local
cities. Some water seeps into the aquifer, becoming groundwater
that feeds streams and the Napa River during the hot summers
and provides well water for vineyards, wineries and homes.
While the world’s oceans have hit a record high temperature,
the Pacific Ocean off the California coast remains colder than
average. In fact, in virtually no place in the world is the
ocean so much colder than normal, according to a map from the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
… The stormy weather is clearly a factor. The
winds associated with storms have pushed water from the north
to the south. The weather has also brought upwelling, when
frigid water from the depths is pulled to the surface. San
Francisco Bay has also been unusually cool.
Emeryville is still digging itself out from under its
industrial past. For years, the city has cleaned up vast swaths
of land contaminated by the scores of commercial warehouses
that used to dominate the East Bay shoreline community. By the
early 2000s, Emeryville earned a reputation as “one of the
foulest industrial wastelands in the Bay Area,” according to
one news outlet, which said the soil was “so toxic that anyone
treading it had to wear a moon suit.” ….This week, city
officials kicked off the complex task of cleaning up roughly
78,000 square-feet of contaminated soil on another city-owned
property just across the railroad tracks from the popular Bay
Street Emeryville shopping center — which was also excavated
before construction.
The costs of California’s relentless winter storms keep rising.
And outside of the human toll — with at least 28 people killed
since January — the price will be measured in billions. The
“bomb cyclone” that lashed San Francisco on Tuesday was the
latest in an epic series of extreme weather events to hit
California since New Year’s Eve. It blew out windows from
skyscrapers, flung barges into a historic bridge, sent trees
tumbling across roads, knocked down power lines, and threatened
a major freeway as the waterlogged hillside beneath it started
to collapse….The price tag for all this
mayhem — road repairs, damaged homes, lost
crops — won’t become clear for months. But the early
estimates are sobering.
The Alameda County Water District announced Wednesday that
surcharges prompted by years of drought will be dropped in
April, following one of the wettest winters on record. At a
special meeting held Tuesday, the agency’s Board of Directors
voted unanimously to end the surcharges, which were put in
place after a water shortage emergency was declared. In March
of 2022, the water district imposed a surcharge of $0.787 for
every 748 gallons, or unit of water, that customers use. On
March 1, the surcharge increased to $0.82 per unit of water.
Earthquakes, snow, wildfires, flooding, smog, fog, heat,
drought — these are just some of extreme natural disasters and
climate conditions experienced in the Golden State in any given
year. California is notoriously the “land of extremes,”
Kristina Dahl, senior climate scientist at the Union of
Concerned Scientists, told ABC News. Snowpack from the winter
could quickly melt into flooding come spring. Heat waves in the
summer pave the way for wildfires in the fall. Now, intense
moisture from atmospheric rivers is walloping the West Coast
with an inundation of precipitation — oftentimes too much at
once. A pervasive megadrought has been plaguing the region for
decades and to top it off, tectonic shifts could cause an
earthquake at almost any given moment.
California is once again bearing the brunt of inclement
weather, as a low-pressure system off the coast rapidly
intensifies and becomes a storm, tapping into another
atmospheric river that’s flowing between Hawaii and
California. The storm that started Monday night is
forecast to raise powerful winds along the coast that will
spread to all corners of the Bay Area, Central Coast and
Central Valley and peak just before sunrise on Tuesday. These
winds will ferry heavy rainfall, thunderstorms and the risk for
more flooding across most of the California coast and
eventually Southern California.
All this winter weather may seem to be at odds with the hotter,
drier California that scientists expect with climate change, as
greenhouse gas emissions raise global temperatures. But that
trend is taking place over longer timescales, across the entire
planet. What happens in California from year to year — or even
winter to winter — can vary dramatically and still fit into the
bigger story, scientists say. … Some scientists
also think that atmospheric warming can change how air masses
move around the planet by altering jet streams, strong winds
that travel about 5-9 miles above the Earth’s surface. As a
result, cold air masses can move farther south, toward
California.
The recent series of storms that swept through the region
wrought havoc in many ways, but they did improve water levels
in California. Without minimizing widespread storm damage and
attending hardship, it is nice to see the hills green again and
hope the rainy trend continues. It’s also a great relief to
note that statewide Sierra snowpack was registering at nearly
200% of normal levels at the beginning of February, and that
preliminary reservoir gauge readings published for the Santa
Clara Valley Water District’s 10 local reservoirs at the same
time showed five of those reservoirs at or above 80% capacity.
And as reported in The Mercury News on Jan. 12: “For the first
time in more than two years, the majority of California is in
moderate drought, not severe drought.” -Written by Andy Gere, president and COO of San
Jose Water.
Travis Air Force Base officials reported the “petroleum” sheen
that has appeared on Union Creek a number of times, usually
after rain events, has not been seen since December. That
includes after the most recent storm, Capt. Jasmine Jacobs,
with the base Public Affairs Office, said in an email response
to the Daily Republic. Jacobs led a site visit with the Daily
Republic on Feb. 27. Leslie Pena, the civilian environmental
element chief at Travis, was part of the tour. This week the
base confirmed for the first time that testing has shown that
aviation fuel, motor oil, gasoline and diesel have been
present, but the source of the leak is still under
investigation.
U.S. Rep. John Garamendi, D-Richmond, on Monday reintroduced
his bipartisan legislation (H.R.1181) to reform permitting for
local wastewater treatment and water recycling projects, with
U.S. Rep. Ken Calvert, R-Riverside, as the original
co-sponsor. Garamendi’s legislation (H.R.1181) would
extend the maximum term for National Pollutant Discharge
Elimination System (NPDES) permits issued under the federal
Clean Water Act from five years to 10 to better reflect the
project construction schedules for public agencies. In October
2019, the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure
passed Garamendi’s legislation. His reintroduced legislation
awaits action by that same committee.
Anyone looking for a sequel to the Oscar-nominated film ‘Erin
Brockovich’ needed only to tune into the Feb. 28 meeting of the
Brentwood City Council to watch the city’s presentation on
chromium-6, a water contaminant that has been linked to cancer.
The presentation, which said the city’s water meets state
safety standards, was given by Miki Tsubota, the director of
Public Works, for the city at the request of council members
after citizens expressed their concern late last year. For
scale, Tsubota said, one part per billion is the equivalent of
a single drop in an Olympic-sized swimming pool. The state is
preparing to establish a maximum contaminant level of 10 parts
per billion, which means Brentwood’s drinking water would more
than meet state-level safety standards, according to Tsubota.
The current state standard is 50 parts per billion.
A well-known Bay Area construction materials firm has unleashed
harmful pollutants into Guadalupe River and Coyote Creek,
threatening sensitive species of fish, frogs and salamanders, a
newly filed lawsuit alleges. The Santa Clara County District
Attorney claims that Graniterock, an over-century-old
Watsonville-based corporation, has discharged stormwater from
two of its San Jose facilities that contain above-level pH
values, cement, sand, concrete, chemical additives and other
heavy metals. Those pollutants have endangered steelhead trout,
the California Tiger Salamander and the California Red Legged
frog — animals that live in and around the South Bay waterways,
the suit alleges. The complaint does not specify when or how
much of the pollutants were apparently found discharged into
the waterways.
California commercial and sports fishers are bracing for the
possibility of no salmon season this year after the fish
population along the Pacific Coast dropped to its lowest point
in 15 years. On Wednesday, wildlife officials announced a low
forecast for the number of the wild adult Chinook (or “king”)
salmon that will be in the ocean during the fishing season that
typically starts in May. The final plan for the commercial and
recreational salmon season will be announced in April.
…Salmon are highly dependent on how much water is available
in their native rivers and streams, especially when they are
very young. Even though the state has gotten a lot of rain and
snow this winter, the population that is now in the ocean was
born in 2020, in the beginning of the state’s current
record-breaking drought. … This year, there will be
about 170,000 adult salmon in the ocean from the Sacramento
River fall run Chinook population, the main group that is
fished commercially in the state and the lowest number since
2008.
A break in Yountville’s recycled-water main serving the
Vintner’s Golf Club and various vineyard ponds east and west of
the Napa River has led to an emergency $1 million repair
project, approved by the Town Council last week. The main
in question is a 6-inch PVC pipe, first installed in 1977, that
runs across the floor of the Napa Valley from the Yountville
wastewater treatment plant west of Highway 29. It reaches as
far as the Clos du Val Winery pond past the Silverado Trail, to
the east, Yountville’s public works director John Ferons said
at the council meeting. As such, the water line also runs below
the Napa River, which is where the leak was discovered about
two weeks ago. Yountville town staff discovered the leak at
noon Feb. 15 because a low-flow alarm went off, and workers
shut off the pumps to investigate the pipes, according to a
staff report.
In communities across California, a Napa winery is implementing
a strategy to save water and fight against drought
conditions. Reid family winery uses mounds of rice straw
under their grapevines, which they said not only helped double
their yield from the year before, but also produced some of the
winery’s best quality grapes yet. … The owners said that
they were able to water significantly less last year compared
to years prior. Since laying the rice straw, they haven’t seen
rivulets or erosion in their sloping vineyard. They
predict that they will have to replace the rice straw every 4
to 5 years.
Clean water is California’s most vital need. Our lives and the
lives of future generations depend on it. Yet when it comes to
protecting the state’s supply, Gov. Gavin Newsom is failing
California. The Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta provides
drinking water to 27 million Californians, or roughly 70% of
the state’s residents. On Feb. 15, the governor signed an
executive order allowing the State Water Resources Control
Board to ignore the state requirement of how much water needs
to flow through the Delta to protect its health. It’s an
outrageous move right out of Donald Trump’s playbook. Big Ag
and its wealthy landowners, including some of Newsom’s
political financial backers, will reap the benefits while the
Delta suffers.
South Bay reservoirs are handling the recent rain quite well
due in part to a delicate dance water managers have been doing
to make sure they catch as much water as possible. … To make
room for future storms, Valley Water has been strategically
releasing water from reservoirs, which is part of the reason
why the county average for reservoir capacity right now is only
50%. Valley Water said the winter rain so far still isn’t
enough to call off the drought emergency. … The Sierra
snowpack is also looking robust. Experts say the hope now is
that the Sierra stays cold for the next few weeks to keep the
snowpack intact. The goal is for the snowpack to begin melting
in mid-spring in time for the runoff to refill the reservoirs
again.
Marin Municipal Water District officials are proposing rate
increases during drought periods to prevent financial
shortfalls, but say ratepayers shouldn’t expect their bills to
spike if they meet their conservation targets. … In a
presentation, Bret Uppendahl, the district finance director,
said adding drought surcharges to water rates is a common
practice by water agencies throughout the country, including
the North Marin Water District. The surcharges are used to make
up for revenue losses during droughts resulting from reduced
water sales from conservation and mandatory water use
restrictions. The district does not use these surcharges and
instead sets aside its regular water sales revenue into a
reserve fund that it taps when droughts occur.
Scientists have warned for decades that due to climate change
water levels are rising throughout the Bay Area. The first
place excess water will show up is underground. As we saw from
recent storms, shallow groundwater can cause flooding in
streets and low-lying areas and can overwhelm wastewater
systems. Local planners and policy makers are analyzing how the
region should adapt to the problem of a rising water table and
how to design buildings, freeways and sewer infrastructure in
response. In our next installment of “Climate Fix: Rethinking
Solutions for California,” a collaboration between the KQED’s
Forum and Science teams, we’ll discuss what’s happening with
groundwater levels as the Bay Area prepares for sea level rise
in the next several decades. Have you experienced flooding in
your home and how did you handle it?
After the first flush of the year saw as much as 95 percent of
daily incoming water to the San Joaquin-Sacramento Delta sent
into the San Francisco Bay, a new decision by the state’s water
board this week will reverse course and allow for more water to
be stored throughout the state’s reservoirs. The State
Water Resources Control Board has temporarily waived rules that
required a certain amount of water to be flushed out to the
bay, a decision that comes after the heavy rains California
experienced to start the year. The backstory: On Feb. 13
the California Department of Water Resources and the Bureau of
Reclamation jointly filed a Temporary Urgency Change Petition.
What do Bordeaux, Loire, Mosel, Rhine, Rhône, Douro, Napa,
Rioja, Ribera del Duero, Tokaj and the Wachau all have in
common? If you said they are all major wine regions split by
rivers or laced with tributaries, pour yourself a glass of
wine. It may seem obvious, but wine wouldn’t exist without
water. And rivers deliver it. For centuries that has meant
soil, sediment, nutrients, warming and cooling influences and,
of course, water, all traveling along riverbanks. According to
the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), today the United
States alone has more than 3 million miles of rivers and
streams—and many of those miles have historically made
agriculture, including viticulture, possible. … Running
around 50 miles from Mt. St. Helena in the north and
spilling into the San Pablo Bay, the Napa River is home to
plants, endangered critters and some of the most valuable
acreage of grapevines in the country.
Two huge dam projects are being planned in Santa Clara County
at a price tag in the billions. The Biden administration has
decided to help fund one of them but — at least for now — not
the other. At a news conference scheduled for Thursday, the
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is set to announce it has
approved $727 million in low-interest loans to the Santa Clara
Valley Water District to help fund the rebuilding of Anderson
Dam near Morgan Hill. The largest reservoir in Santa Clara
County, Anderson has been drained for earthquake repairs since
2020, exacerbating Silicon Valley’s water shortages. Federal
dam safety officials were concerned that its 240-foot earthen
dam, built in 1950, could fail in an earthquake. But the water
district also asked the EPA for twice as much in other
low-interest loans — $1.45 billion — to help fund construction
of a huge new dam near Pacheco Pass and Henry W. Coe State
Park.
A significant winter storm is expected to deliver heavy rain
and snow to a wide swath of the United States this week, from
the West Coast to the Northeast. Cold air from Canada will
interact with a pair of fronts, causing “numerous weather
hazards” and abnormal temperatures while “almost all of the
country [experiences] some form of notable weather,”
the National Weather Service said. Snow accumulation
of 1 to 2 feet is expected for most mountain ranges across the
West, where the storm is arriving at an ideal time to lift the
region’s already impressive snowpack. As of
Tuesday, snowpack in California was sitting at 174%
of normal for Feb. 21, according to the California Department
of Water Resources. Regionally, the Southern Sierra was at
208%, Central Sierra at 176% and the Northern Sierra/Trinity at
144%.
When Bay Area residents wake up later this week and get a look
outside, they might wonder if they’ve been transported many
degrees north, with snow from an unusually cold and windy
winter storm possibly carpeting the region’s major peaks and
even reaching hills as low as 1,000 feet. “Nearly (the)
entire population of CA will be able to see snow from some
vantage point later this week if they look in the right
direction,” said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the
University of California, tweeted Monday. “While snow remains
very unlikely in California’s major cities, it’ll fall quite
nearby.”
As Prudy Foxx walked through rows of ripening fruit at several
vineyards nestled among the Santa Cruz Mountains last
September, she cringed at the spindly shoots rising from the
stocky grapevine trunks. … A similar scene played out
last fall at many vineyards around the Bay Area: years of
drought taking a destructive toll on the vines, threatening a
billion-dollar industry and putting more stress on California’s
scant stored water resources. Then, like a “godsend,” the
rains came. Over several weeks in December and January,
storms dropped more than a foot of rain on Northern California,
smashing historic records and leaving a wide swath of
devastation in their wake.
Gov. Gavin Newsom’s executive order this week declaring war on
California’s water scarcity takes a note from the Bush
playbook. The decision to extend his drought emergency
declaration — despite the recent record rains and flooding —
gives carte blanche to state agencies to eviscerate essential
water quality and environmental protections in perpetuity.
Meanwhile, his administration continues to press for the same
kinds of projects and management strategies that helped create
the state’s water problems in the first place. The results
will be catastrophic for the health of San Francisco
Bay. The bay and the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta form one
of the planet’s great estuaries, where salt water and fresh
mix, and the estuarine ecosystem is highly dependent on the
amount of fresh water that flows into it from the
watershed. -Written by Gary Bobker, program director at the Bay
Institute.
Blasted by sun and beaten by waves,
plastic bottles and bags shed fibers and tiny flecks of
microplastic debris that litter the San Francisco Bay where they
can choke the marine life that inadvertently consumes it.
Estuaries are places where fresh and
salt water mix, usually at the point where a river enters the
ocean. They are the meeting point between riverine environments
and the sea, with a combination of tides, waves, salinity, fresh
water flow and sediment. The constant churning means there are
elevated levels of nutrients, making estuaries highly productive
natural habitats.
Understanding the importance of the Bay-Delta ecosystem and
working to restore it means grasping the scope of what it once
was.
That’s the takeaway message of a report released Nov. 14 by the
San Francisco Estuary Institute.
The report, “A
Delta Renewed,” is the latest in a series sponsored by the
California Department of Fish and Wildlife (DFW). Written by
several authors, the report says there is “cause for hope” to
achieving large-scale Delta restoration in a way that supports
people, farms and the environment. SFEI calls itself “one of
California’s premier aquatic and ecosystem science institutes.”
Zooplankton, which are floating
aquatic microorganisms too small and weak to swim against
currents, are are important food sources for many fish species in
the Delta such as salmon, sturgeon and Delta smelt.
This 3-day, 2-night tour, which we do every year,
takes participants to the heart of California water policy – the
Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and San Francisco Bay.
The Pacific Flyway is one of four
major North American migration routes for birds, especially
waterfowl, and extends from Alaska and Canada, through
California, to Mexico and South America. Each year, birds follow
ancestral patterns as they travel the flyway on their annual
north-south migration. Along the way, they need stopover sites
such as wetlands with suitable habitat and food supplies. In
California, 90 percent of historic wetlands have been lost.
This 25-minute documentary-style DVD, developed in partnership
with the California Department of Water Resources, provides an
excellent overview of climate change and how it is already
affecting California. The DVD also explains what scientists
anticipate in the future related to sea level rise and
precipitation/runoff changes and explores the efforts that are
underway to plan and adapt to climate.
15-minute DVD that graphically portrays the potential disaster
should a major earthquake hit the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
“Delta Warning” depicts what would happen in the event of an
earthquake registering 6.5 on the Richter scale: 30 levee breaks,
16 flooded islands and a 300 billion gallon intrusion of salt
water from the Bay – the “big gulp” – which would shut down the
State Water Project and Central Valley Project pumping plants.
Water truly has shaped California into the great state it is
today. And if it is water that made California great, it’s the
fight over – and with – water that also makes it so critically
important. In efforts to remap California’s circulatory system,
there have been some critical events that had a profound impact
on California’s water history. These turning points not only
forced a re-evaluation of water, but continue to impact the lives
of every Californian. This 2005 PBS documentary offers a
historical and current look at the major water issues that shaped
the state we know today. Includes a 12-page viewer’s guide with
background information, historic timeline and a teacher’s lesson.
Water as a renewable resource is depicted in this 18×24 inch
poster. Water is renewed again and again by the natural
hydrologic cycle where water evaporates, transpires from plants,
rises to form clouds, and returns to the earth as precipitation.
Excellent for elementary school classroom use.
This 24×36 inch poster, suitable for framing, explains how
non-native invasive animals can alter the natural ecosystem,
leading to the demise of native animals. “Unwelcome Visitors”
features photos and information on four such species – including
the zerbra mussel – and explains the environmental and economic
threats posed by these species.
This 24×36 inch poster, suitable for framing, explains how
non-native invasive plants can alter the natural ecosystem,
leading to the demise of native plants and animals. “Space
Invaders” features photos and information on six non-native
plants that have caused widespread problems in the Bay-Delta
Estuary and elsewhere.
The 24-page Layperson’s Guide to the Delta explores the competing
uses and demands on California’s Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
Included in the guide are sections on the history of the Delta,
its role in the state’s water system, and its many complex issues
with sections on water quality, levees, salinity and agricultural
drainage, fish and wildlife, and water distribution.
A new look for our most popular product! And it’s the perfect
gift for the water wonk in your life.
Our 24×36 inch California Water Map is widely known for being the
definitive poster that shows the integral role water plays in the
state. On this updated version, it is easier to see California’s
natural waterways and man-made reservoirs and aqueducts
– including federally, state and locally funded
projects – the wild and scenic rivers system, and
natural lakes. The map features beautiful photos of
California’s natural environment, rivers, water projects,
wildlife, and urban and agricultural uses and the
text focuses on key issues: water supply, water use, water
projects, the Delta, wild and scenic rivers and the Colorado
River.
Operated by the U.S. Army Corps of the Engineers, the San
Francisco Bay/Delta Model is a hydraulic model of San Francisco
Bay and the Delta and is housed in a converted World II-era
warehouse in Sausalito in Marin County.
Stretching 320-feet by 400-feet wide, the Bay Model
features a replica of the Bay Delta watershed from the Golden
Gate to the Sacramento-San Joaquin
Delta. Pumping systems move hundreds of gallons of water
throughout the display and create 14-minute tidal ebb and flow.
Invasive species, also known as
exotics, are plants, animals, insects and aquatic species
introduced into non-native habitats.
Often, invasive species travel to non-native areas by ship,
either in ballast water released into harbors or attached to the
sides of boats. From there, introduced species can then spread
and significantly alter ecosystems and the natural food chain as
they go. Another example of non-native species introduction is
the dumping of aquarium fish into waterways.
This issue of Western Water looks at the BDCP and the
Coalition to Support Delta Projects, issues that are aimed at
improving the health and safety of the Delta while solidifying
California’s long-term water supply reliability.
This printed issue of Western Water provides an overview of the
idea of a dual conveyance facility, including questions
surrounding its cost, operation and governance
This printed copy of Western Water examines the Delta through the
many ongoing activities focusing on it, most notably the Delta
Vision process. Many hours of testimony, research, legal
proceedings, public hearings and discussion have occurred and
will continue as the state seeks the ultimate solution to the
problems tied to the Delta.
