The Delta Conveyance Project Is Key to Modernizing the State Water Project and Delivering Water to Millions of Californians

When two of every three Californians pay their water bills each month, they pay for reservoirs and aqueducts that were designed for them a half century ago. The State Water Project was conceived in the mid-1950s, when California’s population had doubled in the previous 15 years. Floods had recently ravaged Northern California towns. The concept was as simple as it was bold – bring water from the wetter parts of the state to the cities and agricultural operations that were outgrowing water supplies in the Bay Area, San Joaquin Valley, and Southern California.

Fast-forward decades, and the State Water Project has helped resolve groundwater problems in the Santa Clara Valley, South Coast, and elsewhere. In the San Joaquin Valley farm belt, groundwater overdraft persists, but by law irrigation districts must bring aquifers into sustainable conditions by 2040.  The 27 million Californians who pay for the State Water Project have become a $2.3 trillion economic engine, the equivalent of the eighth-largest economy in the world.