Central Valley Water

Central VAlley

• Central Valley includes water from the Sacramento River, San Joaquin River, Tulare Lake Basin
• Consists of water channels and manmade islands
• The Delta serves as a vast switching yard for much of the state's water supply, including drinking water for 23 million people from the Bay Area to San Diego.
• Freshwater is channeled to two massive pumping stations, one owned by the state and the other by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation.
• From the state facility, water enters a labyrinth of pipelines, tunnels, and canals, including the 444-mile-long California Aqueduct, that carries it to residential users. The federal pumps divert water to the farms of the San Joaquin Valley, the core of U.S. fruit and vegetable production.

Groundwater

• Groundwater typically accounts for about 30% of statewide water use in a year; it can be up to 40% in a drought year. Along the central coast, 90% of the drinking water is from groundwater.
• California uses more groundwater than any other state. Even in average rainfall years, more groundwater is used then is replaced by precipitation, stream seepage, or artificial recharge systems. Annual statewide overdraft is estimated by the DWR to be approximately 1.4 million acre-feet in a normal year.
• Groundwater sources are recharged by precipitation, surface runoff, irrigation, or by using imported water injected back into the aquifer, or used in lieu of groundwater pumping. When there is no rainfall, snowfall, or other source available to recharge the aquifer, the aquifer can become overdrafted. Overdrafting can result in lowered water tables and increased energy costs for pumping. Overdraft can also lead to land subsidence, as well as cause sea water and other contaminants to invade the aquifer.
• California is only one of two states left that has yet to enact a comprehensive statewide groundwater management system. Currently there are no controls over the amount drawn from underground aquifers

Levees in the Delta are a concern

• There are 1600 miles of levees that protect the Delta and channel water through the area; most of these were built soon after the Gold Rush.
• Since 1850, 95% of the estuary’s wetlands and tidal marshes have been leveed and filled, with resulting loss of fish and wildlife habitat.
• Much of the network of levees through the Delta has been built only to 100-year flood standards, and levees have failed 162 times in the past 100 years.

Home to many species

• Many species of fish, including salmon, steelhead fish, and the Delta smelt.
• Currently, the Delta is harming these species

Central Valley Project

• Conceived as state project to protect the Central Valley from crippling water shortages and devastating floods. The federal CVP funded the project at its start in 1935.
• Lends assistance in irrigation, municipal, and industrial, recreation and fish and wildlife, hydroelectric power, flood control, and water quality

Route of the Peripheral Canal

What you have learned

• Central Valley is consisted of water from the Sacramento River, San Joaquin River, and Tulare Lake Basin
• Ground water accounts for 30% of statewide water use in a year
• Ground water contamination is a concern
• The levees that were built to protect the Delta and channel water through the area are unreliable
• The Delta is harming the wildlife that live there, many fish species are becoming extinct
• Central Valley Project assists in water supplies and salinity control, it is a major water conservation development project
• There is a proposed peripheral canal that would allow more water to be diverted while also aiding in the restoration of the Delta