Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta – California Globe

Ringside: The Economics of Managing Mono Lake

March 26, 2026 9:00 amMarch 26, 2026 9:01 am

Along with the California Condor, one of our state’s most magnificent environmental success stories of the 20th century is how Mono Lake was saved. In the early 1980s, after decades of unsustainable water withdrawals from the Owens River into the...

Ringside: The Many Benefits of Dredging the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta

March 19, 2026 12:00 pmMarch 19, 2026 12:01 pm

The salmon decline in the delta has been attributed to the impact of water withdrawals into the California Aqueduct and the Delta Mendota Canal. But something else happened at the same time as the pumps were began operating; dredging in...

Ringside – Building the Abundant Water Coalition

March 5, 2026 5:00 amMarch 5, 2026 5:01 am

If enough people in California agreed on a state water strategy, the political obstacles would be overcome. If every major water agency, every farming association, and a critical mass of environmental groups were all committed to a specific set of...

Ringside: Will the Delta Pumps Operate at Capacity this Winter?

December 18, 2025 2:55 amDecember 18, 2025 2:56 am

With another series of drenching storms about to hit California, now is a good time to ask what has become a perennial question: why can’t we harvest more of this massive runoff and reserve it for our farms and cities?...

Ringside: Will Advocates for More Water Supply Projects Find Unity?

December 11, 2025 9:00 amDecember 11, 2025 9:01 am

There’s only one way to restore reliable water allocations to farmers, avoid turning our cities into rationed “xeriscaped” heat islands, and cope with whatever the climate ultimately delivers. That’s to build more infrastructure to safely and sustainably produce millions of...

Ringside: Politically Viable Water Supply Projects

November 27, 2025 6:30 amNovember 27, 2025 6:31 am

A few years ago I was involved in an effort to qualify a ballot initiative, the “Water Infrastructure Funding Act.” While we failed to gather sufficient signatures to get it onto the November 2022 state ballot, if it had been...

Ringside: Large Scale Desalination Could Transform California

October 30, 2025 2:45 amOctober 30, 2025 2:46 am

Why is it axiomatic among California’s water agencies and policymakers that large scale desalination is inconceivable in California? That certainly isn’t the case in other arid locales. In 2024, an estimated 30 million acre feet of fresh water was produced by desalination...