Areas of the San Joaquin Valley and Tulare Lake Basin where drainage problem lands occur.

Click to enlarge. Courtesy of California Department of Water Resources.

Additional Resources:

• Kesterson National Wildlife Refuge
  
• Grasslands Bypass Project
• Central Valley Salinity
• Selenium
• The Land Retirement Option
  
• Read C-WIN's Poisoned Lands Policy Brief

Since the late 1960s the federal Central Valley Project, and later the State Water Project, supply irrigation water to growers irrigating approximately 1.3 million acres of drainage-problem lands on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley and Tulare Lake Basin.

Harvey O. Banks Pumping Plant, a State Water Project facility.

The California Aqueduct, which transports water exported from the Delta into the contractual arrangements of the Monterey Agreement.

Courtesy of California Department of Water Resources.

Visit Our Press Room!

In 1994, four State Water Project contractors, including the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (MWD) and the Kern County Water Agency (KCWA) which together control about 75 percent of the state's water, and representatives from Paramount Farming (a private corporation), met secretly in Monterey to resolve their water shortage issues.

Today’s story of California water is really about justice in water denied to fish, to the California public, and to future generations. We at the California Water Impact Network see fundamental travesties that threaten fisheries and ecosystems with extinction, compromise the rule of established water law, and undermine the viability of our economy in our state.

And we’re doing something about them.

Section 303 of the Clean Water Act (CWA) requires States to adopt and implement water quality standards to restore and maintain the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the Nation’s waters. Water quality standards consist of beneficial uses designated for specific water bodies and water quality criteria[1] necessary to protect those beneficial uses.