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.
Time is running out to register for next Thursday’s Water
101 Workshop and go beyond the headlines to gain a
deeper understanding of how water is managed and moved across
California. Plus, only a handful of seats remain for the
opportunity to extend your ‘beyond the headlines’ water education
experience on the optional watershed tour the next day!
To replenish California’s
chronically depleted aquifers, the state’s Department of Water
Resources is taking a hard look at a new line of attack: Pairing
more sophisticated reservoir operations with groundwater
recharge. Water managers are aiming to make greater use of the
increased floodwater that’s expected to come with flashier, more
intense storms and earlier snowmelt.
The Southern Ute and Ute Mountain Ute Indian tribes have been
pushing for the federal government to uphold its water-related
responsibilities for years. Now, Colorado legislators are
jumping back into the fight. Lawmakers in the Colorado House of
Representatives unanimously passed a resolution advocating for
tribal water access Friday, during Ute Day at the Capitol. The
resolution — which lists a series of longheld tribal water
priorities and urges federal agencies to respond — awaits
consideration in the Senate. It calls on the feds to take
action on everything from releasing frozen funding for tribal
water projects to repair deteriorating federal water systems
and improving access to reservoirs like Lake Nighthorse near
Durango.
Seeing little indication that states in the Colorado River
headwaters will accept or impose new cuts on their water users,
Arizona has hired a law firm to defend its water rights at
trial or before the U.S. Supreme Court, Gov. Katie Hobbs’s
office announced. The hiring allows Arizona to prepare for a
legal fight, though it has not yet initiated one. That decision
would come after the U.S. Department of Interior this summer
adopts new guidelines for sharing the burden of a shrinking
river that has struggled to maintain adequate reservoir storage
for existing uses in Arizona, California and
Nevada. Absent a seven-state deal that has so far
eluded negotiators, the new guidelines appear likely to hit
Arizona hardest.
The consequences of Colorado’s unprecedented hot, dry winter
will begin to show this week. Denver Water is expected
to declare a Stage 1 drought on Wednesday, March 25,
which would immediately implement mandatory watering
restrictions for customers. This would be the first time since
2013 that Denver Water has set use limits beyond the typical
summer rules for outdoor watering. The move comes after
Colorado’s warmest winter in recorded state history, resulting
in one of the worst snowpacks on record. … The proposed
water restrictions will impact all of the 1.5 million people
served by Denver Water, extending beyond just outdoor watering
and into restaurants, hotels, parks and car washes.
A stunning heatwave that shattered records in the US west is
threatening to rapidly melt the sparse snowpack and ramp up
wildfire risks in the seasons ahead. … This heatwave is
also posing significant threats to the water supply. After one
of the warmest winters in the west, the snow that feeds
streams, reservoirs and soil moisture as it melts through the
summer season is already dismally scarce in key watersheds.
… “Anomalous warmth and historic snow drought will still
lead to ecological and wildfire-related impacts as soon as this
spring, and possibly wider water challenges by late summer and
beyond,” climate scientist Daniel Swain said.
Other snowmelt and heat wave news around the West:
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.
