Dear Friends, On December 12, 2025, the Water Board released the latest update to the Bay-Delta Plan, a critical rulemaking for ensuring: water quality, river flows and ecosystem protections for the state’s largest and most endangered estuary and watershed. Disappointingly, the update included the inequitable and deceptive Voluntary Agreements, without adequate protections for ecosystems or the tribes and communities that depend...Read More

In case you missed it, for the first time since December 2000, not a single square mile of California is classified as dry. After an exceptionally wet holiday season fueled by powerful winter storms and atmospheric rivers, the latest U.S. Drought Monitor shows 0% of the state experiencing drought or abnormal dryness, a remarkable milestone for...Read More

Dear Friends, Call Assemblymember Wilson today to stop her efforts to undermine public participation in the update to the San Francisco Bay-San Joaquin Delta Plan (“Bay-Delta Plan”)!   AB 497, amended today by Asm. Lori D. Wilson, supported by Solano County Water Agency, seeks to limit the State Water Resources Control Board (“Water Board”) review and consideration of comments about the most recent update to the...Read More

In a major win for our coalition of Delta-area groups and communities pushing back against the Delta tunnel project, a California appellate court ruled that the Department of Water Resources (DWR) lacks the legal authority to issue billions of dollars in bonds to construct the project. This decision strikes down DWR’s hopes of financing the...Read More

Congressional Democrats from California are pushing back against a Trump administration planto pump more water out of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, warning it could decimatealready struggling fish populations and disrupt water supplies for millions of residents. As The Los Angeles Times reports, seven lawmakers led by Rep. John Garamendi said theplan prioritizes politics over science...Read More

In an insightful Sacramento Bee opinion piece, Vance Staplin, executive director of the Golden State Salmon Association, and Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, executive director of Restore the Delta, urge the State Water Resources Control Board to reject weak voluntary agreements, update the Bay-Delta plan, and adopt meaningful, science-based flow standards to restore salmon runs and protect communities.  Vance...Read More

An AP News article details the Trump administration’s newly announced plan to divert more water to California’s Central Valley, following through on an earlier executive order aimed at increasing agricultural water deliveries. The Bureau of Reclamation says the updated operations plan for the massive Central Valley project will take effect Friday.  California officials and environmental...Read More

ICYMI, California is stepping up to defend its environment, its communities, and its long-termwater security. New letters obtained by the Los Angeles Times reveal that the Trumpadministration is pushing a plan to weaken longstanding Delta environmental protections inorder to send more water to California farmland, rolling back safeguards that protect strugglingnative fish species and help...Read More

On November 20, 2025, Restore the Delta submitted comments to the Attorney General’s Office highlighting our deep concerns with the proposed October 2025 Ballot Initiative, titled “Building an Affordable California.” The October 2025 proposed Ballot Initiative seeks to undermine California’s foundational environmental law, the California Environmental Quality Act (“CEQA”). At a time when our environment is under attack at the...Read More

A broad coalition of Tribes, environmental justice organizations, fishing groups, conservation advocates, and Delta communities successfully halted Governor Gavin Newsom’s budget proposal that sought to bypass critical legal, environmental, and public participation processes in order to fast-track the controversial Delta Tunnel project.  The proposal faced immediate and unified opposition from Tribes, Delta organizations, and local communities, who...Read More