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.
Mark your calendars! Registration will be opening soon for two
exciting Water Education Foundation events this fall.
Water Summit | Oct. 29
Join us for our premier event of
the year, bringing together leading policymakers and experts from
all sectors to discuss the most pressing water issues facing
California and the West.
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.
The plan to build California’s largest new reservoir in 50
years has hit a major snag, threatening to undermine
the $6 billion water-supply project and
prompting outcry from supporters, including Gov. Gavin Newsom,
who has called the enterprise vital for the state. Sites
Reservoir, proposed in rural Glenn and Colusa counties, secured
a key state approval earlier this year: a draft water
right that allows the facility to draw water from the
Sacramento River. Project officials, however,
have determined that the draws authorized by the state
could be too little to justify the reservoir’s
expense, as regulators seek to limit water diversions
to protect fish and other water users. … On
Friday, the State Water Resources Control Board is
holding one last hearing for supporters of the reservoir to
make their case …
As Lake Mead begins its nosedive toward historic lows, a
bipartisan group of 12 Western representatives in Congress is
calling for emergency funding to help fund solutions. One of
the officials who sent a letter to House leadership on
Wednesday is Rep. Dina Titus, D-Nev., who said in a phone
interview that the measure is in direct response to a
record-low water year. … The letter comes days
after the Trump administration said it would pay a water
district in Southern California up to $65 million in
an effort to keep 3 feet of water in Lake Mead; the reservoir,
which provides about 90 percent of Southern Nevada’s drinking
water, will fall to record lows over the next
two years, according to federal projections.
Utah’s recent storms are bringing much-needed rain to
drought-stricken areas, but water experts say the precipitation
is doing little to replenish the state’s reservoirs. While the
rain has provided temporary relief and reduced the need for
outdoor watering, much of the water is absorbed before
it can reach streams and reservoirs, according to the
Utah Division of Water Resources. “It reduces demand, but it
doesn’t increase supply,” said Laura Haskell, drought
coordinator for the division. After extended dry conditions,
thirsty soils and vegetation soak up much of the rainfall
before it can contribute to water storage. … Some Utah
reservoirs remain at critically low levels despite recent
precipitation. Haskell pointed to Yuba Reservoir as being
“almost bone dry,” while water levels at Steinaker Reservoir
have also dropped significantly.
After 13 years, Texas and New Mexico have finally reached a
settlement in a Supreme Court case over Rio Grande water
management. Now comes the hard part. Texas sued New Mexico in
2013, arguing that its upstream neighbor was hogging water on
the river that millions depend on for irrigation and drinking
water. The settlement requires New Mexico to reduce the amount
of water drawn from wells that deplete the flow of Rio Grande
water to Texas. The agreement also introduces a new
accounting method to determine how much water New
Mexico owes Texas. And for the first time, the volume
of water flowing into Texas will be measured at the state
line.
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.
