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.
Time is running out to register for next week’s Water
101 Workshop and go beyond recent national headlines
to gain a deeper understanding of how water is managed and moved
across California. Plus, only a handful of spots remain for the
opportunity to extend your ‘beyond the headlines’ water education
experience on our Central Valley
Tour! And come one, come all to our annual Open
House & Reception on May 1.
Go beyond the stream of recent
national headlines and gain a deeper understanding of how water
is managed and moved across California during our Water
101 Workshop on April 10.
One of our most popular events, the daylong workshop at
McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento offers anyone new to
California water issues or newly elected to a water district
board — and really anyone who wants a refresher — a chance to
gain a solid statewide grounding on the state’s water
resources.
Some of state’s leading policy and legal experts are on the
agenda for the workshop that details
the historical, legal and political facets of water management in
the state.
Sen. Ben Allen accepted amendments Wednesday to narrow the
scope of his bill meant to protect state waters from Trump
administration rollbacks. What happened: The Senate
Environmental Quality Committee said it would approve SB 601—
which would create the term “nexus waters” to encompass all
waters of the state that were under federal jurisdiction before
the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision in Sackett v. EPA — after
Allen agreed to amend it to clarify that it doesn’t apply to
agricultural runoff or drinking water. “We are taking
amendments to be very clear that we’re only talking about point
sources, not non-point source,” said Sean Bothwell, executive
director at California Coastkeeper Alliance and author of the
bill.
Utah lawmakers have given the state more voice in negotiations
over the Colorado and Bear rivers. The move, however, has some
environmentalists concerned about the sensitive multi-state
agreements that govern the rivers. Utah water agent Joel
Ferry’s job is to help secure his state’s future water needs.
Ferry, whose position was created during the 2024 legislative
session, said he’s looking at everything from conservation to
new sources. Previous legislation prevented him from
negotiating with other states tied to interstate water
compacts. Now, a new Utah law gives Ferry the power to
collaborate on water issues with states in the Colorado and
Bear river basins. But Kyle Roerink, executive director of the
Great Basin Water Network, a water policy nonprofit, is
concerned Ferry could be a wild card in sensitive talks over
the rivers’ futures.
For decades, the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) has
governed how projects done by federal agencies must assess
their impacts, and how the public is informed about these
projects. But how does this legislation actually work in
practice? And what changes are coming down the pike from the
Trump administration? … “What does it look like to manage
the Colorado River after 2026 when our current operating
guidelines expire? And what will the impacts be to farmers, to
municipalities, to wildlife habitat, to recreation or changing,
potentially, how we allocate water and manage water in the
Colorado River?” he (Chris Winter, the director of the Getches
Wilkinson Center for Natural Resources, Energy, and the
Environment at CU Boulder’s School of Law) said. “So that whole
entire process of how people and the public engage in that
conversation and submit their views to the government on what
the government should do, that whole process is governed by the
National Environmental Policy Act.”
… A lot of hope was pouring into the river along with those
fish as the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife and the
Klamath Tribes entered the beginning stages of starting a new
run of spring chinook salmon. … The country’s largest dam
removal project took four dams off the Klamath River in
Southern Oregon and Northern California over the past two
years. A free-flowing river has reemerged where
Copco 1 and 2, Iron Gate and J.C. Boyle dams used to be. For
Indigenous tribes, including the Klamath, Shasta, Karuk, Hoopa
Valley and Yurok, the project was a huge victory. Painful water
conflicts have dragged on for decades in the Klamath Basin,
with farmers, fish and tribes all suffering. Now four dams are
out, bringing renewed hope for salmon restoration. But on the
Klamath, it’s going to take a lot more to piece the basin
together again.
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.
