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.
Learn more about our team in the office and on the Board of
Directors and how you can support our nonprofit mission by
donating in someone’s honor or memory, or becoming a regular
contributor or supporting specific projects.
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.
Our 42ⁿᵈ annual Water
Summit, an engaging day of discussions addressing
critical water issues in California and across the West, will be
held on Thursday, Oct. 29, in Sacramento with the theme,
Stewarding a New Era in Western Water.
Speakers and conversations will highlight emerging topics related
to the challenges and opportunities facing management of the
West’s most precious natural resource.
Lively conversations will focus on topics such
as:
The mandate to identify 9 million acre-feet of additional
water supply in California by 2040
The need for clarity in the ongoing AI/data center discourse
related to water resources management
The latest developments in desalination efforts and their
implications for the arid West
A full agenda will be posted soon, and speakers
include:
Joel Metzger | Deputy Director, Statewide
Water Resources Planning, California Department of Water
Resources
Sandi Matsumoto | California Water Program
Director, The Nature Conservancy
Cannon Michael | President, Bowles
Farming
Craig Miller | General Manager, Western
Municipal Water District
Dave Pederson | General Manager, Las Virgenes
Municipal Water District
As previously announced,
the day will open with a keynote address from Tom
Gibson, the new director of California’s Department of
Water Resources. An attorney who has held several roles in
the state’s Natural Resources Agency and its various departments,
Gibson was appointed by Gov. Newsom on June 29 and sworn in on
July 6 to lead DWR and its nearly 4,000 employees.
As your summer adventures wrap up, be sure to reserve your spot
for our popular fall programs. Seating is limited and will fill
up quickly!
Water Summit | October 29
Our 42ⁿᵈ
annual Water Summit is the Foundation’s
premier event of the year and returns to Sacramento October 29
with leading policymakers and experts addressing critical water
issues in California and across the West.
Just one year after the signing of Senate Bill 72, the Summit will
feature a panel discussion of California’s 2028 Water
Plan Update as it undergoes a legislatively
mandated shift from being just a guidance document to a blueprint
providing a framework for implementation of actions.
Officials in the Upper Colorado River Basin plan to continue
draining Flaming Gorge in Wyoming to protect Lake Powell, one
of the basin’s largest reservoirs. The Colorado River
Basin, which extends from Colorado to California and northern
Mexico, uses a network of reservoirs to store vital water
supplies for cities, farms, recreation, the environment and
millions of people. But the basin’s overall storage has
dropped to a third of its capacity, officials said
during an Upper Colorado River Basin meeting
Monday. Lake Powell holds about 22% of its total
capacity. Since April, the Bureau of Reclamation has
released about 450,000 acre-feet of water to help boost storage
in Lake Powell. Colorado and other Upper Basin state officials
agreed Monday that those releases should continue
through April.
… [S]omething unusual is sliding up the west coast of Mexico
right now, and it is aimed squarely at California. A mass of
warm, elevated ocean water hundreds of miles long is
moving north at roughly 6 mph — about the pace of a
jogger — and currently less than 350 miles from Southern
California’s beaches. … For Sacramento and the Delta
region, the connection is closer than it looks on a
map. The Delta is tidal, and in early fall — when
river flows are near an annual low — the ocean’s twice-daily
pulse reaches all the way up the Sacramento River to downtown.
A higher ocean at the Golden Gate Bridge also
translates into a smaller but measurable lift in water
levels through the Delta’s leveed margins upstream. It
also shifts the balance in the ongoing tug-of-war between river
outflow and salty bay water pushing inland.
The Tule East Groundwater Sustainability Agency in southern
Tulare County just can’t seem to put a foot right. The
state is bearing down, demanding an end to overpumping that has
sunk huge swaths of land – taking the critical
Friant-Kern Canal with it. Surrounding farmers and water
managers want action and they want it now. Tule East directors
and staff are still dotting the “i”s to create a
legitimate governing agency. Meanwhile, Tule East
farmers have apparently abandoned all restraint and are
“pumping like it’s the wild west.” The situation is a mess,
according to someone familiar with the process and the players
who agreed to talk with SJV Water.
Byron Sher, a collegial Stanford University law professor who
ran for Palo Alto City Council in the 1960s after losing a
battle over the widening of a local street, then rose to the
state Legislature, writing many of California’s landmark
environmental laws over three decades, has died. … Over
a career that stretched from 1980 to 1996 in the state
Assembly, and from 1996 to 2004 in the state Senate, Sher
passed dozens of groundbreaking bills that made California a
national leader in environmental policy. Among them are the
California Clean Air Act in 1987, the state’s Safe
Drinking Water Act in 1989, and a complex deal with
former Sen. Dianne Feinstein in 1999 to preserve thousands of
acres of old-growth redwoods at Headwaters Forest in Humboldt
County.
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.
