Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta – California Globe

Ringside: Choosing the Right Infrastructure Projects Can Deliver Affordable Abundance

July 2, 2026 6:30 amJuly 2, 2026 6:31 am

The reason to socialize a portion of the cost of major infrastructure is so the ratepayer doesn’t have to bear an unaffordable share of the construction financing payments. The broader benefit to society is to achieve greater affordability for what...

Ringside: How Much Flow Preserves the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta?

June 18, 2026 7:00 amJune 18, 2026 7:01 am

When choosing what policies and projects might best ensure abundant water for California’s ecosystems, farms, and cities, the role of the delta is central. Even if large scale desalination were to someday deliver over a million acre feet of water...

Ringside: When it Comes to Water, California Needs to Think Big Again

May 14, 2026 6:00 amMay 14, 2026 6:01 am

For most of the previous century, Californians successfully designed and built big water infrastructure. In sixty years, from 1910 through 1970, we built the most impressive system of interbasin transfers in the world. The Los Angeles Aqueduct, Hetch Hetchy Aqueduct,...

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?...