One thing stood out in the pile of documents released Thursday detailing state plans to replumb California's water hub: Construction could start on the massive project before water managers know whether it will work as intended. The still-evolving proposal, backed by Gov.

USGS scientists and academic colleagues have investigated how California's interconnected San Francisco Bay and Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta (the Bay-Delta system) is expected to change from 2010 to 2099 in response to both fast and moderate climate warming scenarios.

Western watermasters are the folks who make sure all water right holders on an irrigation system get a fair share of available water. Usually they like to maintain low profiles. That helps with a job which has potential to engender conflict, lawsuits and even violence. Watermaster Craig Wilson recently raised his profile when he spoke out about California’s water woes.

Local rain doesn’t fill our pipes. Of the three main sources that do, Lake Mead, the Colorado River storage reservoir serving Southern California, shrank in July to its lowest level since 1956. Last month, the State Water Resources Control Board concluded that the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta is overdrawn by 50%.

Central California farmers won more water for their parched fields Tuesday when a federal judge temporarily loosened pumping limits meant to protect native salmon.

Federal water managers are boosting deliveries to cities and farms throughout California's Central Valley. The announcement Thursday by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar comes after a series of spring storms grew the snowpack in the Sierra Nevada. Contractors north of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta will get 100 percent of their total allocations. That's double than what they were expecting.

A federal judge turned down California farmers' emergency request Wednesday to suspend water pumping restrictions in the state's delta in a ruling aimed at keeping a threatened fish species from being ground up in the pumps. The decision by U.S.