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.
Groundwater is also increasingly relied upon by growing cities
and thirsty farms, and it plays an important role in the future
sustainability of California’s overall water supply. In an
average year, roughly 40 percent of California’s water supply
comes from groundwater.
A new era of groundwater management began in 2014 with the
Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, which requires local
and regional agencies to develop and implement sustainable
groundwater management plans with the state as the backstop.
… Nearly 1 million acres of farmland across the state are
expected to come out of production due to SGMA. Without new
uses for that land, agricultural jobs will disappear, local tax
revenues will plummet, and our small towns, which are already
stretched thin, will be left with few options. A 2023 Public
Policy Institute of California report put it bluntly: without
action, the economic fallout for the Central Valley could be
massive. If we don’t find new ways to keep this land
economically viable, our rural communities are going to suffer
badly. But legislation currently moving at the state Capitol,
Assembly Bill 1156, provides a lifeline by making it easier to
repurpose fallowed farmland for clean energy projects like
solar panels. It’s a smart, timely solution that protects
farmers, supports clean energy, and brings jobs and investment
back to rural California.
To ensure the availability and sustainability of water
resources and sanitation for all (United Nations Sustainable
Development Goal 6), water managers and the communities they
serve are investing in approaches that are both broad and deep.
… A comprehensive framework like One Water may also help
address a long-standing injustice: why communities of color are
more likely to have higher levels of contaminants in their
drinking water. In addition to applying integrated water
management approaches involving at-risk communities, some
scientists suggest that unconventional water resources should
be explored for their potential to mitigate water insecurity.
That’s the thrust of this month’s opinion, “Deep Groundwater
Might Be a Sustainable Solution to the Water Crisis.”
Contamination and overuse of shallow groundwater supplies are
creating a need for in-depth analysis on the health, safety,
and financial concerns associated with accessing deep
aquifers.
… While the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has changed
directions on several environmental subjects since President
Donald Trump took office, PFAS regulations are not yet among
those. Indeed, the Biden Administration EPA’s PFAS Strategic
Roadmap still is posted on the EPA’s website – at least for now
– and the EPA has not reported in two cases the positions it
will take on judicial challenges to final Biden-era PFAS
regulations. Thus, although those regulations are under
challenge, they are in effect, they have not been stayed, and
they are having impacts in the regulated community. The
EPA’s April 2024 PFAS maximum contaminant levels (MCLs) under
the Safe Drinking Water Act will affect drinking water systems,
of course. More broadly, they also will affect groundwater
cleanups as the low MCL values become integrated into screening
levels, risk analyses, and remediation levels.
The California State Water Resources Control Board heard an
update on implementation of the Sustainable Groundwater
Management Act, which requires local agencies to bring
groundwater basins into balance by 2040 and 2042. …
Since 2023, the California Department of Water Resources has
determined that plans for seven basins were inadequate. In
March 2023, it referred six basins to the state water board for
intervention. The state water board may consider probation for
the Delta-Mendota, Chowchilla and Pleasant Valley subbasins
later this year. In his update to the board last week,
Paul Gosselin, DWR deputy director for sustainable groundwater
management, said the two drivers that led to the 2014 passage
of SGMA were high rates of land subsidence and thousands of
wells that went dry during the drought. He said subsidence
remains a significant issue that affects infrastructure.
… In California, our groundwater system is out of balance.
More water is going out than is coming in, which is causing a
host of problems—falling water levels, domestic wells going
dry, land subsidence, ecosystems under stress, and water
quality problems. There’s a lot of space in the aquifers after
all the groundwater pumping, and natural recharge isn’t filling
it adequately. We could supplement with managed aquifer
recharge (MAR). That means sending the excess water in wet
years to locations where it can move downward and replenish our
groundwater systems. Spreading water in a dedicated recharge
basin, agricultural field, or floodplain could move it
efficiently down below the surface, depending on the geologic
characteristics of the site.
… Since the summer of 2014, the California Department of
Water Resources has received 337 reports of dry wells over the
basin, San Luis Obispo County groundwater sustainability
director Blaine Reely said. In 2024, people pumped about
25,500 acre-feet of water more than was returned to the
underground reservoir, according to the most recent annual
report on the basin. The California Department of Water
Resources considers the basin “critically overdrafted,” and
residential property owners with dry wells are some of the
first casualties of a poorly managed groundwater supply. Those
residents blame farms and vineyards for pumping more than their
fair share of water. According to the basin’s 2024 report,
agriculture used about 94% of the water pumped from the basin.
… The purpose of this letter is to examine the decision made
by the Board on April 8, 2025, denying Ms. Annie Maine’s
petition not to approve a new well permit in the Hungry Hollow
Focus Area. The permit was approved thus consenting to the
continued degradation of the Hungry Hollow aquifer, already
under pressure from hundreds of new deep wells drilled to
supply 100 percent of irrigated water from groundwater sources.
… A group of people in Yolo County are concerned with
the laisse-faire approach to agricultural development during
the past 12 years, transforming the agricultural landscape from
annual crop rotations to perennial plantations. … We
would appreciate that Board members considered a different
future for Yolo agriculture, with greater respect for water and
land resources.
With the summer tourism season on the horizon, a bipartisan
group of Western Slope state lawmakers is warning of “serious
risk” to Colorado’s public lands if U.S. Forest Service cuts
aren’t reversed. In an April 2 letter to United States
Department of Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, lawmakers
called for thousands of recently-fired Forest Service staff to
be rehired. … The letter states that mountain snowpack
runoff — the majority of which flows from national forest lands
on Colorado’s Western Slope — supplies three-quarters
of the water supply for the state’s four major river
systems. “The surface water from these national
forestlands supports drinking water needs, agriculture,
industrial uses, recreation, and habitat for aquatic life
throughout the West,” the letter states. “The potential is
great for national forest management to positively or
negatively influence the reliability of these water supplies,
both in quantity and quality.”
Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs vetoed a swath of bills on water
issues this week, calling them “political cover” for what she
says is the Legislature’s inaction on water security. Hobbs
vetoed seven bills in total, all sponsored by Rep. Gail Griffin
(R-Hereford), who has a history of blocking Hobbs’ and
Democrats’ policy proposals. The bills would have made multiple
policy changes, like modifying definitions of terms and giving
voters an option for removing groundwater protections in parts
of the state under Active Management Areas. Hobbs wrote in a
veto letter that all the bills Griffin sent her either weaken
water protections or make “pointless trivial statutory changes”
that Hobbs argued demean Arizonans who want real groundwater
management.
The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors will allocate $3
million to help homeowners near the Eaton burn area test for
lead contamination, after preliminary tests found elevated
levels of the heavy metal on homes standing after the fire.
… “Without adequate soil testing, contaminants caused by
the fire can remain undetected, posing risks to returning
residents, construction workers, and the environment,” the
state’s Office of Emergency Services director Nancy Ward wrote
in a February letter to FEMA. “Failing to identify and
remediate these fire-related contaminants may expose
individuals to residual substances during rebuilding efforts
and potentially jeopardize groundwater and surface
water quality.”
Wednesday marks one full year since the state brought the
“hammer” down on Kings County farmers for pumping so much
groundwater it sank a vast area that could be seen from space,
nicknamed “the Corcoran bowl.” In the year since the Water
Resources Control Board put the Tulare Lake subbasin on
probation for lacking a plan that would, among other things,
stop excessive pumping that is causing land to collapse taking
an entire town with it, state actions were halted by a lawsuit,
injunction and appeal. … The legal actions have put a
wall between Water Board staff and Kings County water managers
but that doesn’t mean nothing’s been happening. While state
well registration, reporting and fee sanctions are on hold,
just about every groundwater sustainability agency in the
subbasin has implemented its own version of those measures.
… SGMA requires local Groundwater Sustainability Agencies
(GSAs) to develop groundwater sustainability plans (Plans) to
chart a path for achieving sustainable groundwater management
by 2040. Implementing Plans will cost money. However,
generating new sources of revenue and repurposing existing ones
can be complex. Without careful attention to these challenges,
the revenue generation process can be protracted and vulnerable
to failure–a concern that early signs of litigation and
opposition to GSAs’ efforts to generate revenue suggest. Our
new issue brief reports on results from a systematic analysis
of attention to financing in a sample of Plans. We developed a
rubric for evaluating Plans for adequacy of attention to
financing considerations and applied this rubric to a sample of
Plans. We also analyzed DWR’s process for reviewing Plans,
including its approach to satisfying relevant statutory and
regulatory requirements.
Senator Melissa Hurtado (D-Bakersfield) held a press conference
announcing legislation to support floodplain restoration,
enhance flood safety, and improve groundwater recharge in the
counties of Kern, Kings, and Tulare. According to a
release, the bill, Senate Bill 556, represents a rare example
of consensus in California water policy as the farmers,
environmentalists, local communities and irrigation districts
are supportive the bill. Those who attended the conference
include Bakersfield Mayor Karen K. Goh, Kern County Supervisor
Jeff Flores, and McFarland Mayor Saul Ayon.
Less than two months after agreeing to join forces with the
City of Porterville to manage area groundwater, the Porterville
Irrigation District board voted Tuesday to abandon the
partnership and hold a public hearing on whether to form its
own groundwater agency. That hearing will be held May 13. …
The breakup is a continuation of the strife that has dogged the
Tule subbasin as it struggles to comply with the Sustainable
Groundwater Management Act, which mandates aquifers be brought
into balance by 2040. Squabbles and lawsuits have centered
on the southeastern portion of the subbasin where some growers
are blamed for overpumping so much that the ground has
collapsed, sinking a 33-mile section of the Friant-Kern
Canal.
… Just 100 miles northwest of Los Angeles, in California’s
Cuyama Valley, an exploratory oil drilling project is moving
forward on Harvard’s 6,565-acre vineyard. This project is the
latest in a series of Harvard’s grabs on natural resources in
the region that have worsened a critical drought of groundwater
and endangered the area’s many local farmers and ranchers. To
repair these harms, the University must, to the extent that it
is able, put an end to extractive groundwater pumping and oil
drilling in the area and instead invest in building sustainable
agricultural practices that prioritize — rather than threaten —
a human right to water. … From 2012 to 2018, Harvard
purchased thousands of acres of arable land across California.
Of these holdings, North Fork Ranch, acquired through the
subsidiary company Brodiaea Inc., has been the subject of
particular controversy. The land, historically a dry rangeland,
was transformed in a water-intensive process by Harvard into
the largest vineyard in the valley.
A tiny water district in western Tulare County is poised to
nearly triple in size by annexing 13,000 acres of land that has
become “the stepchild nobody wants” for its lack of surface
water. The Atwell Island Water District, at 7,300 acres, sought
the annexation in order to help farmers in the area get access
to surface water, said board member Deanna Jackson. Atwell
has a small federal contract for water from the Central Valley
Project and is a subcontractor for water from the Cross Valley
Canal in Kern County as well. Jackson also runs the overarching
Tri-County Water Authority Groundwater Sustainability Agency,
tasked with bringing the region’s aquifers into balance per the
Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA). Atwell is a
member agency of Tri-County, which also brought this acreage
into its boundaries.
The Arizona Department of Water Resources (ADWR) has been
tasked with developing a model which will enable staff to
determine just how much water is in all the nooks and crannies
of the Willcox basin and others around the state. Rep. Gail
Griffin (R–LD14) tasked the agency, which oversees water issues
within the various basins in the state, to prepare a report so
legislators can make more informed decisions before making
rural groundwater policies, she stated. “Are groundwater levels
decreasing in certain basins? Yes, but the first step should be
to stop the bleeding to prevent the rate of decline from
getting worse. Then we can develop tools to help stabilize the
aquifer and find ways to put more water back in the basin, such
as groundwater recharge, reuse and new technology for farming,”
she stated.
Pumping from the Paso Robles groundwater sub-basin continued at
unsustainable levels last year — with agriculture extracting
more water than domestic well owners and municipal water
systems combined, according to a new report. The
sub-basin, which pools underground from the area east of
Highway 101 to north of Highway 58, was designated as
“critically overdrafted” by the California Department of Water
Resources. Basin users pumped 75,100 acre-feet of water in
2024, up from 63,600 acre-feet in 2023 — an 18% increase,
according to the latest annual report for the
basin. … That’s far from the estimated sustainable
yield of 61,100 acre-feet per year. … This is the eighth
year in a row that pumping exceeded the sustainable yield.
A 10-story development on the corner of Ashby and Shattuck
Avenues will move forward after labor unions and residents
brought forward environmental concerns to the City Council on
March 25. … Concerns about benzene levels initially came
from the project site’s listing in the State Water Resource
Control Board’s Geotracker database, when in 2013 and 2014,
soil sampling revealed elevated levels of benzene, petroleum
hydrocarbon gasoline and more chemicals. However, since
2022, soil sampling has confirmed that benzene levels were
within acceptable limits. … Further concerns about air
quality, soil toxins and groundwater were negated by the city
because, upon review, it found toxins and air quality standards
to be within the accepted limits.
… The (Hualapai Tribe of Arizona) argued that BLM violated
the National Environmental Policy Act when it failed to take
into consideration the consequences mining could have on
water resources. An independent hydrologist
hired by the Tribe found that the lithium drilling project not
only impacted the spring water levels but could also
permanently damage Ha’Kamwe’ (Cofer Hot Springs). …
Studies have shown that lithium reserves worldwide and in the
United States are disproportionately proximate to tribal
lands. … Lithium mining can deplete local water
sources, including fresh groundwater, and cause air,
water, and land contamination, exposing humans to several
health risks, including damage to the nervous system, thyroid,
and kidneys.
Domestic well owners should not be charged fees for pumping
from the overdrafted Paso Robles Groundwater Basin, according
to one water district. “The problem has never been the de
minimis users,” Shandon-San Juan Water District Board of
Directors president Willy Cunha told The Tribune on Thursday.
Farmers are most responsible for dwindling water levels in the
basin, so they should be charged the fees — as long as the
rates are reasonable, he said. The Shandon-San Juan Water
District’s Board of Directors voted 4-0 on March 26 to pass a
resolution that opposed charging domestic well owners water
extraction fees, water district secretary Stephanie Bertoux
said. Why did only four directors vote? The board didn’t
provide the public proper notice that board member Matt
Turrentine would attend the meeting virtually, so he couldn’t
vote on the item, Bertoux said.
… Sequoia Riverland Trust is on a mission to conserve the lands
and waters of California’s heartland. In doing so, the
Visalia-based nonprofit “engages landowners, farmers,
conservationists, business partners and governmental agencies
to collaborate on land conservation throughout our region.” …
The SRT has roots in three separate organizations in the
Visalia, Three Rivers and Springville communities with the same
goal of preserving natural landscapes in the Kings, Kaweah and
Tule watersheds. … The SRT is also a key player in the
movement to revive depleted groundwater
basins, as (SRT’s executive director, Dr. Logan Robertson
Huecker) explains, “multi-benefit land repurposing, or MLRP
(Multibenefit Land Repurposing Program), is a grant program
from the California Department of Conservation, and it’s
essentially a program to bring resources to overdrafted
groundwater sub-basins to help them address the needs under the
Sustainable Groundwater Management Act.”
A combination of water management practices has contributed to
notable groundwater gains in Central Arizona despite the region
dealing with long-term water stress, according to a study led
by researchers at The University of Texas at Austin and
collaborators in Arizona and Colorado. … Some of the state’s
policies incentivize farmers to use surface water from the
river rather than tap into groundwater. Other policies channel
the river water directly to aquifer recharge zones, where it
can seep down to the groundwater. According to the study, which
was published in Communications Earth & Environment, these
policies have helped bank a total of 10.5 cubic kilometers of
groundwater water from 1989–2019 in the Phoenix, Tucson and
Pinal active management areas, where these policies are in
place.
Lemoore area growers and landowners weren’t happy about giving
out their well locations and pumping data but said, if they had
to, they’d rather give that information to a local agency than
the state. … Wednesday’s turnout, about 45 people, was
significantly higher than the GSA’s first workshop March 3
where only nine people showed up. “We’ve made really good
progress,” South Fork General Manager Johnny Gailey reported at
a grower’s advisory group March 27. The GSA now has 45 accounts
in its system with 120 ag and 38 domestic wells registered.
South Fork Kings is aiming to register all wells within its
boundaries by July 1.
Republican state lawmakers advanced an Arizona rural
groundwater protection bill in the House on Tuesday, but rural
stakeholders say the bill doesn’t do enough. Groundwater
aquifers are running low in rural areas of the state, but
Democrats and Republicans haven’t been able to come to an
agreement on a conservation plan. The GOP management plan is in
the form of a bill pushed by Sen. Tim Dunn (R-Yuma). It
advanced out of a House committee on party lines Tuesday,
despite the concerns of speakers and several lawmakers. The
main sticking point is the amount of water use the plan would
allow. In Dunn’s bill, SB 1520, water users would have to cut
up to 10% of their use. Opponents say that isn’t enough. A
group of rural stakeholders held a hearing protesting the bill
before the committee hearing and said the maximum cuts to water
use should be 25%.
As Arizona continues to over pump groundwater across the state,
lawmakers advanced four measures Tuesday that would ease
pumping regulations in active groundwater management
areas. Two of the bills approved by the Senate Natural
Resources Committee Tuesday would allow farmers to irrigate
land not already included in an active management area
irrigation right if the land meets certain criteria. The
Groundwater Management Act of 1980 established five initial
active management areas in Arizona — the cities of Phoenix,
Prescott and Tucson, as well as Santa Cruz and Pinal counties —
in which groundwater pumping is recorded and regulated, as
opposed to pumping being entirely unregulated in other parts of
the state.
Officials are investigating several fire stations between
Livermore and Pleasanton for water contamination as Pleasanton
continues looking for new well sites. In 2023, The San
Francisco Bay Regional Water Board started to examine
facilities for evidence of possible PFAS, or polyfluoroalkyl
substances, in groundwater and runoff storm water in the two
cities. The board chose to investigate the fire stations
after Pleasanton in 2019 began shutting down its three
wells due to significant PFAS contamination. The board now
wants to figure out if fire-fighting foams, which contain the
forever chemical, were a significant source of a massive
subsurface plume of those substances.
The EPA recently announced a consent decree with the operators
of the Oasis Mobile Home Park in California to resolve
violations of the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA). The consent
decree requires the park’s operators to upgrade its drinking
water and wastewater systems and pay a $50,000 penalty. … The
mobile home park is located within the Torres Martinez Desert
Cahuilla Indians Tribal Reservation boundaries in Thermal,
California, which is in the Eastern Coachella Valley. With an
estimated population of 1,000 people, it’s the valley’s largest
mobile home park, primarily serving agricultural workers,
according to the EPA. “While situated on Tribal land, the
public water and wastewater systems at Oasis operate
independently from Tribal control or ownership,” the EPA
release notes. “The Park’s drinking water system uses
groundwater that has high levels of naturally occurring
arsenic.”
Only about a dozen residents attended a recent event in Hanford
to learn about free well testing and organizers learned it’s a
trust thing. “(Rural Kings County residents) don’t want you
coming out and checking their water because they’re afraid
you’re going to close their well down and tell them they have
to dig a new well that they can’t afford,” said attendee Sandra
Martin. “A lot of elderly are afraid.” Kings Water
Alliance Executive Officer Debra Dunn assured attendees the
organization has no intent, nor authority, to shut anyone’s
well down. “We do not tell people what to do with their wells,”
Dunn said.
Where California’s towering Sierra Nevada surrender to the
sprawling San Joaquin Valley, a high-stakes detective story is
unfolding. The culprit isn’t a person but a process: the
mysterious journey of snowmelt as it travels underground to
replenish depleted groundwater reserves. The
investigator is a NASA jet equipped with radar technology so
sensitive it can detect ground movements thinner than a nickel.
The work could unlock solutions to one of the American West’s
most pressing water challenges — preventing groundwater
supplies from running dry.
A series of atmospheric rivers slammed California in early
2023, dumping as much as 300% of the historical annual average
rainfall on some parts of the state. The rains replenished
surface water storage above its historical average, but
scientists are still unraveling how the influx of precipitation
affected the state’s groundwater, which suffered from extreme
drought conditions from 2020 to 2022. In a new study
published in Science, researchers used an existing network of
seismic instruments to probe that question. They found that
surface water, such as lakes, streams, and reservoirs, had
recovered above its historical average after the winter storms.
But the volume of groundwater—defined in the study as water
stored more than 50 meters (164 feet) below the surface—lagged
far behind.
On March 14, 2025, the Court of Appeal for California’s Fifth
Appellate District issued its decision in Sandton Agriculture
Investments III v. 4-S Ranch Partners, 2025 S.O.S. 659. That
case provided guidance on ownership of captured water and
percolating groundwater. … The opinion in this case is a
timely one that provides guideposts for how parties should
think about property rights when purchasing or selling
property. The water rights at issue in this case were arguably
worth between $200 million and $600 million, and Sandton
acquired them almost for free. This case should be considered
in any acquisition or transfer of property with captured water
or groundwater.
The San Miguel Community Services District declined to join a
new agency that will charge fees for pumping groundwater from
the Paso Robles Groundwater Basin. The basin is managed by five
Groundwater Sustainability Agencies, four of which voted to
create a Joint Powers Authority that would have the power to
levy fees. On Thursday night, the San Miguel Community Services
District Board of Directors voted 2-2 on a motion to join the
Joint Powers Authority. Because the board was tied, the motion
failed, and the agency missed the Friday deadline to join the
Joint Powers Authority.
In recognition of Groundwater Awareness Week, it’s incredible
to think about the tremendous work California has accomplished
since our legislature passed the Sustainable Groundwater
Management Act (SGMA) in 2014. Work that wouldn’t have been
possible without the partnership and effort of over 250 local
Groundwater Sustainability Agencies (GSAs). To our partners,
thank you for your time and dedication to writing over 100
groundwater sustainability plans (GSPs) that protect drinking
water wells, reduce land sinking, and improve groundwater
supplies for our communities. –Written by By Paul Gosselin, DWR Deputy Director for
Sustainable Water Management
Cities across California and the Southwest are significantly
increasing and diversifying their use of recycled wastewater as
traditional water supplies grow tighter.
The 5th edition of our Layperson’s Guide to Water Recycling
covers the latest trends and statistics on water reuse as a
strategic defense against prolonged drought and climate change.
Seeking to prevent the California State Water Resources Control
Board from stepping in to regulate groundwater in critically
overdrafted subbasins, local agencies are working to correct
deficiencies in their plans to protect groundwater. With
groundwater sustainability agencies formed and groundwater
sustainability plans evaluated, the state water board has moved
to implement the 2014 Sustainable Groundwater Management Act,
or SGMA. … Under probation, groundwater extractors in
the Tulare Lake subbasin face annual fees of $300 per well and
$20 per acre-foot pumped, plus a late reporting fee of 25%.
SGMA also requires well owners to file annual groundwater
extraction reports.
This tour explored the lower Colorado River firsthand where virtually every drop of the river is allocated, yet demand is growing from myriad sources — increasing population, declining habitat, drought and climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to some 40 million people in the Southwest across seven states, 30 tribal nations and Mexico. How the Lower Basin states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial needs was the focus of this tour.
Hilton Garden Inn Las Vegas Strip South
7830 S Las Vegas Blvd
Las Vegas, NV 89123
Last week, Assemblywoman Esmeralda Soria introduced AB 2060 to
help divert local floodwater into regional groundwater
basins. AB 2060 seeks to streamline the permitting process
to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife in support of
Flood-MAR activities when a stream or river has reached
flood-monitor or flood stage as determined by the California
Nevada River Forecast Center or the State Water Resources
Control Board (SWRCB). This expedited approval process would be
temporary during storm events with qualifying flows under the
SWRCB permit.
How will selling groundwater help keep more groundwater in the
San Joaquin Valley’s already critically overtapped aquifers?
Water managers in the Kaweah subbasin in northwestern Tulare
County hope to find out by having farmers tinker with a pilot
groundwater market program. Kaweah farmers will be joining
growers from subbasins up and down the San Joaquin Valley
who’ve been looking at how water markets might help them
maintain their businesses by using pumping allotments and
groundwater credits as assets to trade or sell when water is
tight.
This tour explored the Sacramento River and its tributaries through a scenic landscape while learning about the issues associated with a key source for the state’s water supply.
All together, the river and its tributaries supply 35 percent of California’s water and feed into two major projects: the State Water Project and the federal Central Valley Project.
Water Education Foundation
2151 River Plaza Drive, Suite 205
Sacramento, CA 95833
The 3ʳᵈ International Conference, Toward Sustainable Groundwater in Agriculture: Linking Science & Policy took place from June 18 – 20. Organized by the Water Education Foundation and the UC Davis Robert M. Hagan Endowed Chair, the conference provided scientists, policymakers, agricultural and environmental interest group representatives, government officials and consultants with the latest scientific, management, legal and policy advances for sustaining our groundwater resources in agricultural regions around the world.
The conference keynote address was provided by Mark Arax, an award-winning journalist and author of books chronicling agriculture and water issues in California’s Central Valley. Arax comes from a family of Central Valley farmers and is praised for writing books that are deeply profound, heartfelt and nuanced including The Dreamt Land, West of the West and The King of California. He did a reading from his latest book The Dreamt Land and commented on the future of groundwater in the Valley during his keynote lunch talk on June 18.
Hyatt Regency San Francisco Airport
1333 Bayshore Hwy
Burlingame, CA 94010
A new but little-known change in
California law designating aquifers as “natural infrastructure”
promises to unleash a flood of public funding for projects that
increase the state’s supply of groundwater.
The change is buried in a sweeping state budget-related law,
enacted in July, that also makes it easier for property owners
and water managers to divert floodwater for storage underground.
A new underground mapping technology
that reveals the best spots for storing surplus water in
California’s Central Valley is providing a big boost to the
state’s most groundwater-dependent communities.
The maps provided by the California Department of Water Resources
for the first time pinpoint paleo valleys and similar prime
underground storage zones traditionally found with some guesswork
by drilling exploratory wells and other more time-consuming
manual methods. The new maps are drawn from data on the
composition of underlying rock and soil gathered by low-flying
helicopters towing giant magnets.
The unique peeks below ground are saving water agencies’
resources and allowing them to accurately devise ways to capture
water from extreme storms and soak or inject the surplus
underground for use during the next drought.
“Understanding where you’re putting and taking water from really
helps, versus trying to make multimillion-dollar decisions based
on a thumb and which way the wind is blowing,” said Aaron Fukuda,
general manager of the Tulare Irrigation District, an early
adopter of the airborne electromagnetic or
AEM technology in California.
This tour explored the lower Colorado River firsthand where virtually every drop of the river is allocated, yet demand is growing from myriad sources — increasing population, declining habitat, drought and climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to some 40 million people in the Southwest across seven states, 30 tribal nations and Mexico. How the Lower Basin states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial needs was the focus of this tour.
Hilton Garden Inn Las Vegas Strip South
7830 S Las Vegas Blvd
Las Vegas, NV 89123
It was exactly the sort of deluge
California groundwater agencies have been counting on to
replenish their overworked aquifers.
The start of 2023 brought a parade of torrential Pacific storms
to bone dry California. Snow piled up across the Sierra Nevada at
a near-record pace while runoff from the foothills gushed into
the Central Valley, swelling rivers over their banks and filling
seasonal creeks for the first time in half a decade.
Suddenly, water managers and farmers toiling in one of the
state’s most groundwater-depleted regions had an opportunity to
capture stormwater and bank it underground. Enterprising agencies
diverted water from rushing rivers and creeks into manmade
recharge basins or intentionally flooded orchards and farmland.
Others snagged temporary permits from the state to pull from
streams they ordinarily couldn’t touch.
This special Foundation water tour journeyed along the Eastern Sierra from the Truckee River to Mono Lake, through the Owens Valley and into the Mojave Desert to explore a major source of water for Southern California, this year’s snowpack and challenges for towns, farms and the environment.
This tour explored the Sacramento River and its tributaries through a scenic landscape while learning about the issues associated with a key source for the state’s water supply.
All together, the river and its tributaries supply 35 percent of California’s water and feed into two major projects: the State Water Project and the federal Central Valley Project.
Water Education Foundation
2151 River Plaza Drive, Suite 205
Sacramento, CA 95833
A pilot program in the Salinas Valley run remotely out of Los Angeles is offering a test case for how California could provide clean drinking water for isolated rural communities plagued by contaminated groundwater that lack the financial means or expertise to connect to a larger water system.
Managers of California’s most
overdrawn aquifers were given a monumental task under the state’s
landmark Sustainable Groundwater Management Act: Craft viable,
detailed plans on a 20-year timeline to bring their beleaguered
basins into balance. It was a task that required more than 250
newly formed local groundwater agencies – many of them in the
drought-stressed San Joaquin Valley – to set up shop, gather
data, hear from the public and collaborate with neighbors on
multiple complex plans, often covering just portions of a
groundwater basin.
This tour explored the Sacramento River and its tributaries
through a scenic landscape while learning about the issues
associated with a key source for the state’s water supply.
All together, the river and its tributaries supply 35 percent of
California’s water and feed into two major projects: the State
Water Project and the federal Central Valley Project.
Water Education Foundation
2151 River Plaza Drive, Suite 205
Sacramento, CA 95833
This tour traveled along the San Joaquin River to learn firsthand
about one of the nation’s largest and most expensive river
restoration projects.
The San Joaquin River was the focus of one of the most
contentious legal battles in California water history,
ending in a 2006 settlement between the federal government,
Friant Water Users Authority and a coalition of environmental
groups.
Hampton Inn & Suites Fresno
327 E Fir Ave
Fresno, CA 93720
An online
short course starting Thursday will provide
registrants the opportunity to learn more about how groundwater
is monitored, assessed and sustainably managed.
The class, offered by University of California, Davis and
several other organizations in cooperation with the Water
Education Foundation, will be held May 12, 19,
26 and June 2, 16 from 9 a.m. to noon.
Martha Guzman recalls those awful
days working on water and other issues as a deputy legislative
secretary for then-Gov. Jerry Brown. California was mired in a
recession and the state’s finances were deep in the red. Parks
were cut, schools were cut, programs were cut to try to balance a
troubled state budget in what she remembers as “that terrible
time.”
She now finds herself in a strikingly different position: As
administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s
Region 9, she has a mandate to address water challenges across
California, Nevada, Arizona and Hawaii and $1 billion to help pay
for it. It is the kind of funding, she said, that is usually
spread out over a decade. Guzman called it the “absolutely
greatest opportunity.”
This tour explored the lower Colorado River firsthand where virtually every drop of the river is allocated, yet demand is growing from myriad sources — increasing population, declining habitat, drought and climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to some 40 million people in the Southwest across seven states, 30 tribal nations and Mexico. How the Lower Basin states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial needs was the focus of this tour.
Hyatt Place Las Vegas At Silverton Village
8380 Dean Martin Drive
Las Vegas, NV 89139
This tour ventured through California’s Central Valley, known as the nation’s breadbasket thanks to an imported supply of surface water and local groundwater. Covering about 20,000 square miles through the heart of the state, the valley provides 25 percent of the nation’s food, including 40 percent of all fruits, nuts and vegetables consumed throughout the country.
The lower Colorado River has virtually every drop allocated, yet demand is growing from myriad sources — increasing population, declining habitat, drought and climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to 40 million people in the Southwest across seven states, 30 tribal nations and Mexico. How the Lower Basin states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial needs was the focus of this tour.
Hyatt Place Las Vegas At Silverton Village
8380 Dean Martin Drive
Las Vegas, NV 89139
This tour guided participants on a virtual exploration of the Sacramento River and its tributaries and learn about the issues associated with a key source for the state’s water supply.
All together, the river and its tributaries supply 35 percent of California’s water and feed into two major projects: the State Water Project and the federal Central Valley Project.
As California’s seasons become
warmer and drier, state officials are pondering whether the water
rights permitting system needs revising to better reflect the
reality of climate change’s effect on the timing and volume of
the state’s water supply.
A report by the State Water Resources Control Board recommends
that new water rights permits be tailored to California’s
increasingly volatile hydrology and be adaptable enough to ensure
water exists to meet an applicant’s demand. And it warns
that the increasingly whiplash nature of California’s changing
climate could require existing rights holders to curtail
diversions more often and in more watersheds — or open
opportunities to grab more water in climate-induced floods.
The San Joaquin Valley has a big
hill to climb in reaching groundwater sustainability. Driven by
the need to keep using water to irrigate the nation’s breadbasket
while complying with California’s Sustainable Groundwater
Management Act, people throughout the valley are looking for
innovative and cost-effective ways to manage and use groundwater
more wisely. Here are three examples.
Groundwater provides about 40
percent of the water in California for urban, rural and
agricultural needs in typical years, and as much as 60 percent in
dry years when surface water supplies are low. But in many areas
of the state, groundwater is being extracted faster than it can
be replenished through natural or artificial means.
Across a sprawling corner of southern Tulare County snug against the Sierra Nevada, a bounty of navel oranges, grapes, pistachios, hay and other crops sprout from the loam and clay of the San Joaquin Valley. Groundwater helps keep these orchards, vineyards and fields vibrant and supports a multibillion-dollar agricultural economy across the valley. But that bounty has come at a price. Overpumping of groundwater has depleted aquifers, dried up household wells and degraded ecosystems.
Since 1997, more than 430 engineers,
farmers, environmentalists, lawyers, and others have graduated
from our William R. Gianelli Water Leaders program. We’ve
developed a new alumni network
webpage to help program participants connect and keep in
touch.
An
online short course starting Thursday will provide
registrants the opportunity to learn more about how groundwater
is monitored, assessed and sustainably managed.
The class, offered by UC Davis and several other organizations in
cooperation with the Water Education Foundation, will be
held May 21 and 28, June 4, 18, and 25 from 9 a.m. to noon.
The bill is coming due, literally,
to protect and restore groundwater in California.
Local agencies in the most depleted groundwater basins in
California spent months putting together plans to show how they
will achieve balance in about 20 years.
This event explored the lower Colorado River where virtually every drop of the river is allocated, yet demand is growing from myriad sources — increasing population, declining habitat, drought and climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to 40 million people in the Southwest across seven states and Mexico. How the Lower Basin states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial needs was the focus of this tour.
Innovative efforts to accelerate
restoration of headwater forests and to improve a river for the
benefit of both farmers and fish. Hard-earned lessons for water
agencies from a string of devastating California wildfires.
Efforts to drought-proof a chronically water-short region of
California. And a broad debate surrounding how best to address
persistent challenges facing the Colorado River.
These were among the issues Western Water explored in
2019, and are still worth taking a look at in case you missed
them.
A diverse roster of top
policymakers and water experts are on the
agenda for the Foundation’s 36th annual Water
Summit. The conference, Water Year 2020: A Year
of Reckoning, will feature compelling conversations
reflecting on upcoming regulatory deadlines and efforts to
improve water management and policy in the face of natural
disasters.
Tickets for the Water Summit are sold out, but by joining the waitlist we can
let you know when spaces open via cancellations.
To survive the next drought and meet
the looming demands of the state’s groundwater sustainability
law, California is going to have to put more water back in the
ground. But as other Western states have found, recharging
overpumped aquifers is no easy task.
Successfully recharging aquifers could bring multiple benefits
for farms and wildlife and help restore the vital interconnection
between groundwater and rivers or streams. As local areas around
California draft their groundwater sustainability plans, though,
landowners in the hardest hit regions of the state know they will
have to reduce pumping to address the chronic overdraft in which
millions of acre-feet more are withdrawn than are naturally
recharged.
California experienced one of the
most deadly and destructive wildfire years on record in 2018,
with several major fires occurring in the wildland-urban
interface (WUI). These areas, where communities are in close
proximity to undeveloped land at high risk of wildfire, have felt
devastating effects of these disasters, including direct impacts
to water infrastructure and supplies.
One panel at our 2019 Water
Summit Oct. 30 in Sacramento will feature speakers
from water agencies who came face-to-face with two major fires:
The Camp Fire that destroyed most of the town of Paradise in
Northern California, and the Woolsey Fire in the Southern
California coastal mountains. They’ll talk about their
experiences and what lessons they learned.
The southern part of California’s Central Coast from San Luis Obispo County to Ventura County, home to about 1.5 million people, is blessed with a pleasing Mediterranean climate and a picturesque terrain. Yet while its unique geography abounds in beauty, the area perpetually struggles with drought.
Indeed, while the rest of California breathed a sigh of relief with the return of wet weather after the severe drought of 2012–2016, places such as Santa Barbara still grappled with dry conditions.
Atmospheric rivers, the narrow bands
of moisture that ferry precipitation across the Pacific Ocean to
the West Coast, are necessary to keep California’s water
reservoirs full.
However, some of them are dangerous because the extreme rainfall
and wind can cause catastrophic flooding and damage, much
like what happened in 2017 with Oroville Dam’s spillway.
Learn the latest about atmospheric river research and forecasting
at our 2019 Water
Summit on Oct. 30 in Sacramento, where
prominent research meteorologist Marty Ralph will give the
opening keynote.
With a key deadline for the
Sustainable Groundwater Management Act in January, one of the
featured panels at our Oct.
30thWater
Summit will focus on how regions around California
are crafting groundwater sustainability plans and working on
innovative ways to fill aquifers.
The theme for this year’s Water Summit, “Water Year 2020: A Year
of Reckoning,” reflects critical upcoming events in California
water, including the imminent Jan. 31, 2020 deadline for
groundwater sustainability plans (GSPs) in high- and
medium-priority basins.
Our event calendar is an excellent
resource for keeping up with water events in California and the
West.
Groundwater is top of mind for many water managers as they
prepare to meet next January’s deadline for submitting
sustainability plans required under California’s Sustainable
Groundwater Management Act. We have several upcoming featured
events listed on our calendar that focus on a variety of relevant
groundwater topics:
Registration opens today for the
Water Education Foundation’s 36th annual Water
Summit, set for Oct. 30 in Sacramento. This year’s
theme, Water Year 2020: A Year of Reckoning,
reflects fast-approaching deadlines for the State Groundwater
Management Act as well as the pressing need for new approaches to
water management as California and the West weather intensified
flooding, fire and drought. To register for this can’t-miss
event, visit our Water Summit
event page.
Registration includes a full day of discussions by leading
stakeholders and policymakers on key issues, as well as coffee,
materials, gourmet lunch and an outdoor reception by the
Sacramento River that will offer the opportunity to network with
speakers and other attendees. The summit also features a silent
auction to benefit our Water Leaders program featuring
items up for bid such as kayaking trips, hotel stays and lunches
with key people in the water world.
Summer is a good time to take a
break, relax and enjoy some of the great beaches, waterways and
watersheds around California and the West. We hope you’re getting
a chance to do plenty of that this July.
But in the weekly sprint through work, it’s easy to miss
some interesting nuggets you might want to read. So while we’re
taking a publishing break to work on other water articles planned
for later this year, we want to help you catch up on
Western Water stories from the first half of this year
that you might have missed.
Our 36th annual
Water Summit,
happening Oct. 30 in Sacramento, will feature the theme “Water
Year 2020: A Year of Reckoning,” reflecting upcoming regulatory
deadlines and efforts to improve water management and policy in
the face of natural disasters.
The Summit will feature top policymakers and leading stakeholders
providing the latest information and a variety of viewpoints on
issues affecting water across California and the West.
One of California Gov. Gavin
Newsom’s first actions after taking office was to appoint Wade
Crowfoot as Natural Resources Agency secretary. Then, within
weeks, the governor laid out an ambitious water agenda that
Crowfoot, 45, is now charged with executing.
That agenda includes the governor’s desire for a “fresh approach”
on water, scaling back the conveyance plan in the Sacramento-San
Joaquin Delta and calling for more water recycling, expanded
floodplains in the Central Valley and more groundwater recharge.
Groundwater helped make Kern County
the king of California agricultural production, with a $7 billion
annual array of crops that help feed the nation. That success has
come at a price, however. Decades of unchecked groundwater
pumping in the county and elsewhere across the state have left
some aquifers severely depleted. Now, the county’s water managers
have less than a year left to devise a plan that manages and
protects groundwater for the long term, yet ensures that Kern
County’s economy can continue to thrive, even with less water.
This tour explored the lower Colorado River where virtually every drop of the river is allocated, yet demand is growing from myriad sources — increasing population, declining habitat, drought and climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to 40 million people in the Southwest across seven states and Mexico. How the Lower Basin states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial needs is the focus of this tour.
Silverton Hotel
3333 Blue Diamond Road
Las Vegas, NV 89139
Although Santa Monica may be the most aggressive Southern California water provider to wean itself from imported supplies, it is hardly the only one looking to remake its water portfolio.
In Los Angeles, a city of about 4 million people, efforts are underway to dramatically slash purchases of imported water while boosting the amount from recycling, stormwater capture, groundwater cleanup and conservation. Mayor Eric Garcetti in 2014 announced a plan to reduce the city’s purchase of imported water from Metropolitan Water District by one-half by 2025 and to provide one-half of the city’s supply from local sources by 2035. (The city considers its Eastern Sierra supplies as imported water.)
Imported water from the Sierra
Nevada and the Colorado River built Southern California. Yet as
drought, climate change and environmental concerns render those
supplies increasingly at risk, the Southland’s cities have ramped
up their efforts to rely more on local sources and less on
imported water.
Far and away the most ambitious goal has been set by the city of
Santa Monica, which in 2014 embarked on a course to be virtually
water independent through local sources by 2023. In the 1990s,
Santa Monica was completely dependent on imported water. Now, it
derives more than 70 percent of its water locally.
The whims of political fate decided
in 2018 that state bond money would not be forthcoming to help
repair the subsidence-damaged parts of Friant-Kern Canal, the
152-mile conduit that conveys water from the San Joaquin River to
farms that fuel a multibillion-dollar agricultural economy along
the east side of the fertile San Joaquin Valley.
The growing leadership of women in water. The Colorado River’s persistent drought and efforts to sign off on a plan to avert worse shortfalls of water from the river. And in California’s Central Valley, promising solutions to vexing water resource challenges.
These were among the topics that Western Water news explored in 2018.
We’re already planning a full slate of stories for 2019. You can sign up here to be alerted when new stories are published. In the meantime, take a look at what we dove into in 2018:
This 2-day, 1-night tour offered participants the opportunity to
learn about water issues affecting California’s scenic Central
Coast and efforts to solve some of the challenges of a region
struggling to be sustainable with limited local supplies that
have potential applications statewide.
In the universe of California water, Tim Quinn is a professor emeritus. Quinn has seen — and been a key player in — a lot of major California water issues since he began his water career 40 years ago as a young economist with the Rand Corporation, then later as deputy general manager with the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, and finally as executive director of the Association of California Water Agencies. In December, the 66-year-old will retire from ACWA.
In 1983, a landmark California Supreme Court ruling extended the public trust doctrine to tributary creeks that feed Mono Lake, which is a navigable water body even though the creeks themselves were not. The ruling marked a dramatic shift in water law and forced Los Angeles to cut back its take of water from those creeks in the Eastern Sierra to preserve the lake.
Now, a state appellate court has for the first time extended that same public trust doctrine to groundwater that feeds a navigable river, in this case the Scott River flowing through a picturesque valley of farms and alfalfa in Siskiyou County in the northern reaches of California.
This tour explored the Sacramento River and its tributaries
through a scenic landscape as participants learned about the
issues associated with a key source for the state’s water supply.
All together, the river and its tributaries supply 35 percent of
California’s water and feed into two major projects: the State
Water Project and the federal Central Valley Project. Tour
participants got an on-site update of Oroville Dam spillway
repairs.
There’s going to be a new governor
in California next year – and a host of challenges both old and
new involving the state’s most vital natural resource, water.
So what should be the next governor’s water priorities?
That was one of the questions put to more than 150 participants
during a wrap-up session at the end of the Water Education
Foundation’s Sept. 20 Water Summit in Sacramento.
More than a decade in the making, an
ambitious plan to deal with the vexing problem of salt and
nitrates in the soils that seep into key groundwater basins of
the Central Valley is moving toward implementation. But its
authors are not who you might expect.
An unusual collaboration of agricultural interests, cities, water
agencies and environmental justice advocates collaborated for
years to find common ground to address a set of problems that
have rendered family wells undrinkable and some soil virtually
unusable for farming.
As California embarks on its unprecedented mission to harness groundwater pumping, the Arizona desert may provide one guide that local managers can look to as they seek to arrest years of overdraft.
Groundwater is stressed by a demand that often outpaces natural and artificial recharge. In California, awareness of groundwater’s importance resulted in the landmark Sustainable Groundwater Management Act in 2014 that aims to have the most severely depleted basins in a state of balance in about 20 years.
Spurred by drought and a major
policy shift, groundwater management has assumed an unprecedented
mantle of importance in California. Local agencies in the
hardest-hit areas of groundwater depletion are drawing plans to
halt overdraft and bring stressed aquifers to the road of
recovery.
Along the way, an army of experts has been enlisted to help
characterize the extent of the problem and how the Sustainable
Groundwater Management Act of 2014 is implemented in a manner
that reflects its original intent.
We explored the lower Colorado River where virtually every drop
of the river is allocated, yet demand is growing from myriad
sources — increasing population, declining habitat, drought and
climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to 40 million people in
the Southwest across seven states and Mexico. How the Lower Basin
states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this
water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial
needs was the focus of this tour.
Hampton Inn Tropicana
4975 Dean Martin Drive, Las Vegas, NV 89118
California voters may experience a sense of déjà vu this year when they are asked twice in the same year to consider water bonds — one in June, the other headed to the November ballot.
Both tackle a variety of water issues, from helping disadvantaged communities get clean drinking water to making flood management improvements. But they avoid more controversial proposals, such as new surface storage, and they propose to do some very different things to appeal to different constituencies.
This three-day, two-night tour explored the lower Colorado River
where virtually every drop of the river is allocated, yet demand
is growing from myriad sources — increasing population,
declining habitat, drought and climate change.
The 1,450-mile river is a lifeline to 40 million people in
the Southwest across seven states and Mexico. How the Lower Basin
states – Arizona, California and Nevada – use and manage this
water to meet agricultural, urban, environmental and industrial
needs is the focus of this tour.
Best Western McCarran Inn
4970 Paradise Road
Las Vegas, NV 89119
This tour explored the Sacramento River and its tributaries
through a scenic landscape as participants learned about the
issues associated with a key source for the state’s water supply.
All together, the river and its tributaries supply 35 percent of
California’s water and feed into two major projects: the State
Water Project and the federal Central Valley Project. Tour
participants got an on-site update of repair efforts on the
Oroville Dam spillway.
Participants of this tour snaked along the San Joaquin River to
learn firsthand about one of the nation’s largest and most
expensive river restoration projects.
The San Joaquin River was the focus of one of the most
contentious legal battles in California water history,
ending in a 2006 settlement between the federal government,
Friant Water Users Authority and a coalition of environmental
groups.
Groundwater replenishment happens
through direct recharge and in-lieu recharge. Water used for
direct recharge most often comes from flood flows, water
conservation, recycled water, desalination and water
transfers.
One of the wettest years in California history that ended a
record five-year drought has rejuvenated the call for new storage
to be built above and below ground.
In a state that depends on large surface water reservoirs to help
store water before moving it hundreds of miles to where it is
used, a wet year after a long drought has some people yearning
for a place to sock away some of those flood flows for when they
are needed.
Sinkholes are caused by erosion of
rocks beneath soil’s surface. Groundwater dissolves soft
rocks such as gypsum, salt and limestone, leaving gaps in the
originally solid structure. This is exacerbated when water is
acidic from contact with carbon dioxide or acid rain. Even
humidity can play a major role in destabilizing water
underground.
Irrigation is the artificial supply
of water to grow crops or plants. Obtained from either surface or groundwater, it optimizes
agricultural production when the amount of rain and where it
falls is insufficient. Different irrigation
systems are not necessarily mutually exclusive, but in
practical use are often combined. Much of the agriculture in
California and the West relies on irrigation.
The United States
Geographical Survey (USGS) defines freshwater as containing
less than 1,000 milligrams per liter dissolved solids. However,
500 milligrams per liter is usually the cutoff for municipal and
commercial use. Most of the Earth’s water is saline, 97.5
percent with only 2.5 percent fresh.
Springs are where groundwater becomes surface water, acting as openings
where subsurface water can discharge onto the ground or directly
into other water bodies. They can also be considered the
consequence of an overflowing
aquifer. As a result, springs often serve as headwaters to streams.
Potable water, also known as
drinking water, comes from surface and ground sources and is
treated to levels that that meet state and federal standards for
consumption.
Water from natural sources is treated for microorganisms,
bacteria, toxic chemicals, viruses and fecal matter. Drinking
raw, untreated water can cause gastrointestinal problems such as
diarrhea, vomiting or fever.
Extensometers are among the most valuable devices hydrogeologists
use to measure subsidence, but most people – even water
professionals – have never seen one. They are sensitive and
carefully calibrated, so they are kept under lock and key and are
often in remote locations on private property.
During our California
Groundwater Tour Oct. 5-6, you will see two types of
extensometers used by the California Department of Water
Resources to monitor changes in elevation caused by groundwater
overdraft.
Flowing into the heart of the Mojave Desert, the Mojave River
exists mostly underground. Surface channels are usually dry
absent occasional groundwater surfacing and flooding
from extreme weather events like El Niño.
Alluvium generally refers to the clay, silt, sand and gravel that
are deposited by a stream, creek or other water body.
Alluvium is found around deltas and rivers, frequently
making soils very fertile. Alternatively, “colluvium” refers to
the accumulation at the base of hills, brought there from runoff
(as opposed to a water body). The Oxnard Plain in Ventura
County is a visible alluvial plain, where floodplains have
drifted over time due to gradual deposits of alluvium, a feature
also present in Red Rock Canyon State Park in Kern County.
A new era of groundwater management
began in 2014 with the passage of the Sustainable Groundwater
Management Act (SGMA), which aims for local and regional agencies
to develop and implement sustainable groundwater management
plans with the state as the backstop.
SGMA defines “sustainable groundwater management” as the
“management and use of groundwater in a manner that can be
maintained during the planning and implementation horizon without
causing undesirable results.”
This issue looks at remote sensing applications and how satellite
information enables analysts to get a better understanding of
snowpack, how much water a plant actually uses, groundwater
levels, levee stability and more.
This handbook provides crucial
background information on the Sustainable Groundwater Management
Act, signed into law in 2014 by Gov. Jerry Brown. The handbook
also includes a section on options for new governance.
This 2-day, 1-night tour traveled through Inland
Southern California to learn about the region’s efforts in
groundwater management, recycled water and other drought-proofing
measures.
This 2-day, 1-night tour traveled from the
Sacramento region to Napa Valley to view sites that explore
groundwater issues. Topics included groundwater quality,
overdraft and subsidence, agricultural use, wells, and regional
management efforts.
The 28-page Layperson’s Guide to Groundwater is an in-depth,
easy-to-understand publication that provides background and
perspective on groundwater. The guide explains what groundwater
is – not an underground network of rivers and lakes! – and the
history of its use in California.
The 28-page Layperson’s Guide to Water Rights Law, recognized as
the most thorough explanation of California water rights law
available to non-lawyers, traces the authority for water flowing
in a stream or reservoir, from a faucet or into an irrigation
ditch through the complex web of California water rights.
This printed issue of Western Water looks at California
groundwater and whether its sustainability can be assured by
local, regional and state management. For more background
information on groundwater please refer to the Foundation’s
Layperson’s Guide to Groundwater.
This printed issue of Western Water examines
groundwater management and the extent to which stakeholders
believe more efforts are needed to preserve and restore the
resource.
This printed issue of Western Water looks at hydraulic
fracturing, or “fracking,” in California. Much of the information
in the article was presented at a conference hosted by the
Groundwater Resources Association of California.
This printed issue of Western Water examines
groundwater banking, a water management strategy with appreciable
benefits but not without challenges and controversy.
This printed issue of Western Water features a
roundtable discussion with Anthony Saracino, a water resources
consultant; Martha Davis, executive manager of policy development
with the Inland Empire Utilities Agency and senior policy advisor
to the Delta Stewardship Council; Stuart Leavenworth, editorial
page editor of The Sacramento Bee and Ellen Hanak, co-director of
research and senior fellow at the Public Policy Institute of
California.
This printed issue of Western Water looks at some of
the pieces of the 2009 water legislation, including the Delta
Stewardship Council, the new requirements for groundwater
monitoring and the proposed water bond.
This printed issue of Western Water examines
desalination – an issue that is marked by great optimism and
controversy – and the expected role it might play as an
alternative water supply strategy.
This printed issue of Western Water examines the Russian and
Santa Ana rivers – areas with ongoing issues not dissimilar to
the rest of the state – managing supplies within a lingering
drought, improving water quality and revitalizing and restoring
the vestiges of the native past.
This printed copy of Western Water examines California’s drought
– its impact on water users in the urban and agricultural sector
and the steps being taken to prepare for another dry year should
it arrive.
Statewide, groundwater provides about 30 percent of California’s
water supply, with some regions more dependent on it than others.
In drier years, groundwater provides a higher percentage of the
water supply. Groundwater is less known than surface water but no
less important. Its potential for helping to meet the state’s
growing water demand has spurred greater attention toward gaining
a better understanding of its overall value. This issue of
Western Water examines groundwater storage and its increasing
importance in California’s future water policy.
This issue of Western Water examines the issue of California
groundwater management, in light of recent attention focused on
the subject through legislative actions and the release of the
draft Bulletin 118. In addition to providing an overview of
groundwater and management options, it offers a glimpse of what
the future may hold and some background information on
groundwater hydrology and law.
This 25-minute documentary-style DVD, developed in partnership
with the California Department of Water Resources, provides an
excellent overview of climate change and how it is already
affecting California. The DVD also explains what scientists
anticipate in the future related to sea level rise and
precipitation/runoff changes and explores the efforts that are
underway to plan and adapt to climate.
20-minute DVD that explains the problem with polluted stormwater,
and steps that can be taken to help prevent such pollution and
turn what is often viewed as a “nuisance” into a water resource
through various activities.
Many Californians don’t realize that when they turn on the
faucet, the water that flows out could come from a source close
to home or one hundreds of miles away. Most people take their
water for granted; not thinking about the elaborate systems and
testing that go into delivering clean, plentiful water to
households throughout the state. Where drinking water comes from,
how it’s treated, and what people can do to protect its quality
are highlighted in this 2007 PBS documentary narrated by actress
Wendie Malick.
A 30-minute version of the 2007 PBS documentary Drinking Water:
Quenching the Public Thirst. This DVD is ideal for showing at
community forums and speaking engagements to help the public
understand the complex issues surrounding the elaborate systems
and testing that go into delivering clean, plentiful water to
households throughout the state.
Water truly has shaped California into the great state it is
today. And if it is water that made California great, it’s the
fight over – and with – water that also makes it so critically
important. In efforts to remap California’s circulatory system,
there have been some critical events that had a profound impact
on California’s water history. These turning points not only
forced a re-evaluation of water, but continue to impact the lives
of every Californian. This 2005 PBS documentary offers a
historical and current look at the major water issues that shaped
the state we know today. Includes a 12-page viewer’s guide with
background information, historic timeline and a teacher’s lesson.
This 7-minute DVD is designed to teach children in grades 5-12
about where storm water goes – and why it is so important to
clean up trash, use pesticides and fertilizers wisely, and
prevent other chemicals from going down the storm drain. The
video’s teenage actors explain the water cycle and the difference
between sewer drains and storm drains, how storm drain water is
not treated prior to running into a river or other waterway. The
teens also offer a list of BMPs – best management practices that
homeowners can do to prevent storm water pollution.
Fashioned after the popular California Water Map, this 24×36-inch
poster was extensively re-designed in 2017 to better illustrate
the value and use of groundwater in California, the main types of
aquifers, and the connection between groundwater and surface
water.
Water as a renewable resource is depicted in this 18×24 inch
poster. Water is renewed again and again by the natural
hydrologic cycle where water evaporates, transpires from plants,
rises to form clouds, and returns to the earth as precipitation.
Excellent for elementary school classroom use.
The 20-page Layperson’s Guide to Water Marketing provides
background information on water rights, types of transfers and
critical policy issues surrounding this topic. First published in
1996, the 2005 version offers expanded information on
groundwater banking and conjunctive use, Colorado River
transfers and the role of private companies in California’s
developing water market.
Order in bulk (25 or more copies of the same guide) for a reduced
fee. Contact the Foundation, 916-444-6240, for details.
The 24-page Layperson’s Guide to the State Water Project provides
an overview of the California-funded and constructed State Water
Project.
The State Water Project is best known for the 444-mile-long
aqueduct that provides water from the Delta to San Joaquin Valley
agriculture and southern California cities. The guide contains
information about the project’s history and facilities.
The 24-page Layperson’s Guide to Integrated Regional Water
Management (IRWM) is an in-depth, easy-to-understand publication
that provides background information on the principles of IRWM,
its funding history and how it differs from the traditional water
management approach.
The 24-page Layperson’s Guide to California Water provides an
excellent overview of the history of water development and use in
California. It includes sections on flood management; the state,
federal and Colorado River delivery systems; Delta issues; water
rights; environmental issues; water quality; and options for
stretching the water supply such as water marketing and
conjunctive use. New in this 10th edition of the guide is a
section on the human need for water.
The 28-page Layperson’s Guide to Nevada Water provides an
overview of the history of water development and use in Nevada.
It includes sections on Nevada’s water rights laws, the history
of the Truckee and Carson rivers, water supplies for the Las
Vegas area, groundwater, water quality, environmental issues and
today’s water supply challenges.
Seawater intrusion can harm groundwater quality in a variety of
places, both coastal and inland, throughout California.
Along the coast, seawater intrusion into aquifers is connected to overdrafting of
groundwater. Additionally, in the interior, groundwater
pumping can draw up salty water from ancient seawater isolated in
subsurface sediments.
Overdraft occurs when, over a period of years, more water is
pumped from a groundwater basin than is replaced from all sources
– such as rainfall, irrigation water, streams fed by mountain
runoff and intentional recharge. [See also Hydrologic Cycle.]
While many of its individual aquifers are not overdrafted,
California as a whole uses more groundwater than is replaced.
The treatment of groundwater— the primary source of drinking
water and irrigation water in many parts of the United States —
varies from community to community, and even from well to well
within a city depending on what contaminants the water contains.
In California, one-half of the state’s population drinks water
drawn from underground sources [the remainder is provided by
surface water].
Groundwater management is recognized
as critical to supporting the long-term viability of California’s
aquifers and protecting the
nearby surface waters that are connected to groundwater.
California has considered, but not implemented, a comprehensive
groundwater strategy many
times over the last century.
One hundred years ago, the California Conservation Commission
considered adding groundwater regulation into the Water
Commission Act of 1913. After hearings were held, it was
decided to leave groundwater rights out of the Water Code.
California, like most arid Western states, has a complex system
of surface water rights
that accounts for nearly all of the water in rivers and streams.
Groundwater banking is a process of diverting floodwaters or
other surface water into
an aquifer where it can be
stored until it is needed later. In a twist of fate, the space
made available by emptying some aquifers opened the door for the
banking activities used so extensively today.
When multiple parties withdraw water from the same aquifer,
groundwater pumpers can ask the court to adjudicate, or hear
arguments for and against, to better define the rights that
various entities have to use groundwater resources. This is known
as groundwater adjudication. [See also California
water rights and Groundwater Law.]
If California were flat, its groundwater would be enough to flood
the entire state 8 feet deep. The enormous cache of underground
water helped the state become the nation’s top agricultural
producer. Groundwater also provides a critical hedge against
drought to sustain California’s overall water supply.
In years of average precipitation, about 40 percent of the
state’s water supply comes from underground. During a drought,
the amount can approach 60 percent.
For something so largely hidden from view, groundwater is an
important and controversial part of California’s water supply
picture. How it should be managed and whether it becomes part of
overarching state regulation is a topic of strong debate.
In early June, environmentalists and Delta water agencies sued
the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) and the Kern
County Water Agency (KCWA) over the validity of the transfer of
the Kern Water Bank, a huge underground reservoir that supplies
water to farms and cities locally and outside the area. The suit,
which culminates a decade-long controversy involving multiple
issues of state and local jurisdictional authority, has put the
spotlight on groundwater banking – an important but controversial
water management practice in many areas of California.
Groundwater, out of sight and out of mind to most people, is
taking on an increased role in California’s water future.
Often overlooked and misunderstood, groundwater’s profile is
being elevated as various scenarios combine to cloud the water
supply outlook. A dry 2006-2007 water year (downtown Los Angeles
received a record low amount of rain), crisis conditions in the
Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and the mounting evidence of climate
change have invigorated efforts to further utilize aquifers as a
reliable source of water supply.
When you drink the water, remember the spring. – Chinese proverb
Water is everywhere. Viewed from outer space, the Earth radiates
a blue glow from the oceans that dominate its surface. Atop the
sea and land, huge clouds of water vapor swirl around the globe,
propelling the weather system that sustains life. Along the way,
water, which an ancient sage called “the noblest of elements,”
transforms from vapor to liquid and to solid form as it falls
from the atmosphere to the surface, trickles below ground and
ultimately returns skyward.
Traditionally treated as two separate resources, surface water
and groundwater are increasingly linked in California as water
leaders search for a way to close the gap between water demand
and water supply. Although some water districts have coordinated
use of surface water and groundwater for years, conjunctive use
has become the catchphrase when it comes to developing additional
water supply for the 21st century.
