Final Environmental Impact Statement: Long-Term Operation of the Central Valley Project and State Water Project Central Valley Project, California

U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (USBR) | November 15th, 2024

The United States Department of the Interior, Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation) prepared this environmental impact statement (EIS) for the 2021 Endangered Species Act R

The United States Department of the Interior, Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation) prepared this environmental impact statement (EIS) for the 2021 Endangered Species Act Reinitiation of Section 7 Consultation on the Long-Term Operation of the Central Valley Project (CVP) and State Water Project (SWP). This EIS is meant to inform the public and decision makers on potential federal actions by examining a range of reasonable alternatives and the potential effect on the environment. Reclamation manages the CVP. The California Department of Water Resources (DWR) manages the SWP. Collectively, the operation of the CVP and SWP provides flood control and navigation; delivers water to 30 million people; supports 4 million acres of agriculture; maintains 19 wildlife refuges on the Pacific Flyway; protects numerous iconic and endemic species such as Chinook salmon, coho salmon, steelhead, sturgeon, and smelt; generates 4.5 million megawatt hours of electricity; maintains water quality for beneficial uses in the San Francisco Bay/Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta Estuary (Bay-Delta); and supports recreation throughout Northern California. 

Final State Water Project Delivery Capability Report 2023

California Department of Water Resources (DWR) | July 31st, 2024

This Delivery Capability Report presents California Department of Water Resources (DWR) analysis of the State Water Project (SWP) system and provides important planning i

This Delivery Capability Report presents California Department of Water Resources (DWR) analysis of the State Water Project (SWP) system and provides important planning information for users of SWP water. The analysis provides information about how changing climate, regulatory, and operational considerations impact SWP delivery capability.

Final Value Planning Study Report for Through Delta Facility, Sacramento, California

California Department of Water Resources (DWR) | July 1st, 2007

Fish Collections and Secondary Louver Efficiency at the Tracy Fish Collection Facility: October 1993 to September 1995

U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (USBR) | May 29th, 1998

Five Decades of Magical Thinking: How California's Water Policy is Founded on a Bankrupt 53-year-old Fantasy

California Water Impact Network (C-WIN) | May 5th, 2012

Recent revelations confirm that California's water policy is founded on a decades-old water deficit, one that will only be compounded by Jerry Brown's Twin Tunnels projec

Recent revelations confirm that California's water policy is founded on a decades-old water deficit, one that will only be compounded by Jerry Brown's Twin Tunnels project—a boondoggle scheme that would attempt to meet unsustainable contractual obligations by draining the Sacramento/San Joaquin Delta of fresh water. The real issue here is not about how water is conveyed; it's about whether there is enough water for more conveyance or storage. When California officials built the State Water Project in 1960, they knew it would run out of water by 1981. To make up the shortfall, the state overappropriated water from the Delta. Operation of the Twin Tunnels is predicated on 1960 water availability estimates of anticipated diversions from north state rivers. These diversions from the Middle Fork Eel, the Mad and Van Duzen Rivers did not occur due to their ultimate state and federal designation as Wild and Scenic Rivers.

Fixing the Flawed Colorado River Compact

American Geophysical Union (AGU) | June 16th, 2023

Flow Augmentations Modify an Estuarine Prey Field

University of California, Davis (UC Davis) | June 15th, 2023

Flows and Fishes in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta Research Needs in Support of Adaptive Management

Delta Stewardship Council (Delta Council) | August 15th, 2015

Gage Gap

Nature Conservancy | October 31st, 2018

Following a difficult five-year drought, California just had one of the wettest winters on record. The state is famous for its highly engineered water system, whi

Following a difficult five-year drought, California just had one of the wettest winters on record. The state is famous for its highly engineered water system, which moves millions of gallons of water from north to south and east to west. Thirty-nine million people and our $47 billion agricultural industry rely on that water, not to mention wildlife from the Sierra to the sea. And yet we have surprisingly little data about how much water is moving through our streams at any given time. There are over 3,600 locations in California where stream gages have been active at some point, but only 54% have been active recently. And even fewer of those provide the kind of rich, real-time reporting needed to manage what is arguably our state’s most precious and contentious resource.

Gone with the flow

Bay Institute | August 1st, 2010

The Bay Institute's primer Gone with the Flow describes in plain language how runoff flowing from the mountain watersheds ringing California’s Central Valley provided c

The Bay Institute's primer Gone with the Flow describes in plain language how runoff flowing from the mountain watersheds ringing California’s Central Valley provided coldwater paradises for salmon returning to their native streams; turned lowland rivers and their floodplains into a rich source of food and shelter for young fish; mingled in the Delta’s complex maze of marshes and sloughs; and created a vast expanse of brackish water habitat essential for estuarine creatures in the upper reaches of San Francisco Bay. The primer also explains how the lack of access to most upland streams now forces migratory fish to cope with undesirable, often lethal flow conditions; how runoff in lowland rivers has been shifted from spring to summer, or even almost completely cut off in the San Joaquin basin, with disastrous consequences for the environment; how reverse flows in Delta channels kill hundreds of millions of aquatic organisms each year; and how the Bay is now in a permanent ecological drought because of the diversion of half its freshwater inflow.