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.
For the past 20 years, the Colorado
River has been operated under a set of guidelines negotiated
between the seven states that depend on the river. Those
guidelines expire this year, and after five years of grinding
negotiations over a new agreement, the upstream states of
Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and New Mexico remain deadlocked against
the downstream states of California, Arizona and Nevada.
Some 40 million people and 5.5 million acres of farmland depend
on the river’s water. But after the states failed to meet two
federal deadlines in three months, the river is in a moment of
unprecedented crisis. A dire snowpack has left flows just 15
percent of normal, many farms without water and several cities
scrambling to secure water supplies as they gird themselves for
shortages.
Lake Powell, a key reservoir on the Colorado River, is
shrinking toward “dead pool,” which means water won’t flow
downriver anymore — and that could in turn pinch Wyoming’s
municipal and industrial water supplies with more demand from
Flaming Gorge Reservoir. Lake Powell, on the
Utah-Arizona state line, is in dire condition, USA Today
reported. By next spring, it’s expected to fall into “minimum
power pool,” meaning having barely just enough water to
generate hydroelectric power at Glen Canyon Dam. If it
falls even farther, that could put the reservoir at
“dead pool,” or unable to generate hydroelectric
power, according to reports. That’s despite roughly 1
million acre-feet expected to be pulled from Flaming Gorge
Reservoir on the Wyoming-Utah state line and sent downriver
through Wyoming to replenish Lake Powell.
The House of Transportation and Infrastructure Committee
approved on July 1 the authorization of $155 million under the
latest Water Resources and Development Act (WRDA) bill to
support the Sacramento River Basin, newly elected Congressman
James Gallagher (CA-01) announced. The authorization is part of
the House Water Resource Development Act (WRDA) 2026 bill,
which operates through the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’
Environmental Infrastructure program. … If the WRDA 2026
bill passes, the $155 million would support the basin’s
water and wastewater infrastructure, environmental restoration
and surface water protection. It would support
environmental restoration meant to improve drought resilience,
salmon recovery, and bird migration without increasing flood
risk.
Gov. Gavin Newsom recently announced the appointment of Jared
Blumenfeld, former California Environmental Protection
Secretary, to the State Water Resources Control Board.
Blumenfeld served as California Environmental Protection
Secretary from 2019 to 2022. His experience also includes
serving as Regional Administrator for the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency from 2010 to 2016. Blumenfeld will succeed
former Board Member Laurel Firestone, who
departed the State Water Resources Control Board on June 18.
Firestone was first appointed February 2019. Newsom also
announced the reappointed Dorene D’Adamo as
Vice Chair of the State Water Board earlier this year.
Blumenfeld’s appointment requires state Senate confirmation.
The next phase in the state’s crackdown on over pumping in
Tulare County will be revealed July 16 in Visalia. The meeting,
which is not open to the public, will give water managers their
first glimpse at the state’s plan for correcting severe
overdraft in the Tule subbasin. It’s known as an “interim
plan” and will definitely include pumping limits and a
fee increase from $20 to $35 per acre foot pumped. The
draft interim plan won’t be released until summer 2027 and
would have to be approved by the Water Resources Control Board
later that year before going into effect. But the clock is
ticking and the July 16 meeting is the first step to
lay out the process and timeline.
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.
