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.
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.
California lawmakers today approved one of the most substantial
rollbacks of the state’s signature environmental review law in
decades, including a controversial exemption that would allow
high-tech manufacturing plants to be built in industrial zones
with no environmental review. The changes to the California
Environmental Quality Act were embedded in a last-minute budget
bill that sailed through the Senate and the Assembly. The new
law exempts nine types of projects from environmental reviews:
child care centers, health clinics, food banks, farmworker
housing, broadband, wildfire prevention, water
infrastructure, public parks or trails and, notably,
advanced manufacturing. Aiming to streamline and lower the cost
of construction in California, the new law also restricts legal
challenges under CEQA by narrowing which documents courts can
consider.
A federal judge agreed on Monday with the U.S. Bureau of
Reclamation that conversion of temporary water contracts from
the California Central Valley Project doesn’t require a new
environmental review under the National Environmental Policy
Act or the Endangered Species Act. U.S. District Judge Jennifer
Thurston, a Joe Biden appointee …. said she agreed with and
adopted the bureau’s interpretation that (the 2016 Water
Infrastructure Improvements for the Nation Act) requires
contract conversion upon request by farmers and other water
users that obtain water from the Central Valley Project and
that it strips the bureau of discretion to modify any
contractual right other than those related to the financial
terms specifically addressed in the statute.
The invasive two-inch wide golden mussel showed up near the
Port of Stockton last fall. Since then, it’s spread south,
extending to other waterways in the Delta and some in the San
Joaquin Valley. Now, eyes are looking north to Lake
Oroville, where the mussels could pose a large threat if
they’re introduced. The reservoir is the second largest in
California. … The mussels also pose a significant
environmental threat. Eric See is with the Department of Water
Resources. He said Lake Oroville feeds water into the Feather
River Fish Hatchery through small diameter piping. It raises
steelhead trout and chinook salmon. Chinook populations are
threatened, and the state is currently trying to bring them
back. If that pipe gets blocked, it cuts off water to the fish.
… The mussels could also create large algae blooms that can
kill fish and filter water, increasing aquatic weed growth.
That makes it harder for fish in the water to navigate and find
food.
The U.S. Supreme Court’s 2023 decision on Sackett v.
Environmental Protection Agency dramatically weakened
protections for millions of acres of the West’s essential
wetlands and streams. Under the ruling, only bodies of
water with a “continuous surface connection” to a “relatively
permanent” traditional, navigable water body can be legally
considered part of the waters of the United States (WOTUS) and
therefore covered by the Clean Water Act. … In the absence of
federal regulations, state dredge-and-fill permitting programs
can protect wetlands, and California, Oregon and Washington all
have broad protections for non-WOTUS wetlands and streams. And
since the Sackett decision, Colorado and New Mexico have passed
laws restoring clean water protections for waters excluded from
WOTUS.
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.
