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.
One of the major rationales for building California’s two biggest surface water supply projects was to provide a supplemental source of water from Northern California so San Joaquin Valley farmers could reduce their reliance on groundwater.
The imported water, it was hoped, would lessen reliance on local groundwater and slow or even halt land subsidence caused by excessive pumping from the aquifers.
The growing likelihood of a historic El Niño season has already triggered statewide emergency preparations, raising important questions about what lies ahead for California’s water systems, infrastructure and communities.
At the Foundation’s 42nd Annual Water Summit on October 29 in Sacramento, renowned weather and climate scientist Daniel Swain will share the latest outlook on El Niño conditions and what the recent forecast of the heaviest precipitation hitting in January could mean for California.
Biologists have discovered a live adult zebra mussel below the
Westwater Recreation Area in the Utah side of the
Colorado River, raising the risk of
the invasive species spreading in the state. The
discovery was made Sept. 22, about a month after testing
detected zebra mussel DNA in the water in Utah, according to a
news release from the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources. The
division received confirmation Wednesday that it had in fact
found a live mussel downstream of the infestation near Loma,
Colorado. … Invasive mussels are aparticular threat in irrigation-dependent
Utah. They can spread to water lines, clogging pipes
and costing millions of dollars to remove, and damage boat
engines. They remove plankton from water, disrupting food
supplies for fish.
… Experts have warned that a potentially historic El Niño is
brewing, with the power to unleash extreme weather
around the world. The climate phenomenon,
characterized by warmer than average equatorial sea surface
temperatures, is already under way, according to federal
forecasters, and it is expected to strengthen through the
northern hemisphere’s autumn and winter. California is
poised to be in its crosshairs. Landslides, flash
floods and encroaching sea levels are all on the menu –
and they could all happen at once. … Some
areas could see supercharged storms and relentless
rains. Others face explosive surf, strong currents and
devastated marine ecosystems. … Preparations are already
under way at all levels of government as officials work
to secure vital infrastructure, preset response resources and
inform the public of the incoming hazards.
Farmers in the Mexicali Valley face a deepening water crisis
that threatens to derail winter crops early next
year following a double hit of international cutbacks
and federal reallocations, regional agricultural leaders
warned. Rubén Camacho Ledón, president of the Permanent
Agrarian Congress (CAP), said local growers will bear
the brunt of reduced flows from the Colorado River under Minute
334 of the International Boundary and Water Commission
(IBWC/CILA). Under the agreement, Mexico is ceding 308 million
cubic meters (308 million m3) of its annual Colorado
River quota during 2027 and 2028 due to a 25-year drought
across the river basin, La Voz newspaper reported. … The
strain will peak in January and February, when
irrigation schedules for alfalfa, wheat, and cotton overlap
simultaneously.
As controversy over data centers swells in communities around
the Bay Area and the nation, Santa Clara leaders are pushing to
beef up the city’s regulations and standards for future
data center development. In an hourslong and at times
tense discussion that began Tuesday night and stretched to
nearly 1 a.m. Wednesday, the Santa Clara City Council directed
city staff to prioritize tightening air pollution and
water use regulations for new data centers in the city
as they take a more comprehensive look at all city policies
related to data centers. … The city already requires
data centers built after December 2022 to use the equivalent of
carbon-neutral power, through purchasing offsets, encourages
the use of recycled water and asks developers
to expand recycled water infrastructure during
buildouts, city staff said.
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.
