Crucial California Delta Faces a Salty Future

If you've never heard of the Sacramento Delta, you're not alone. Even people who live in California aren't too sure where it is. But the Sacramento Delta is crucial to the health of the state, and climate change is threatening the delta's very existence.

The Sacramento Delta is a small triangle of land just inland from the San Francisco Bay Area. It's where the fresh water from California's major rivers and the salt water from the Pacific Ocean meet. More than 20 million Californians get some of their drinking water from the delta. It also provides much of the water for California's huge agribusiness.

But rising sea levels threaten to turn the delta into a salty marsh, contaminating all that freshwater and flooding the homes and farms of delta residents."The delta of today is not sustainable even under today's conditions, never mind climate change," says geologist Jeffrey Mount.

Here's the problem. On one side of the delta is saltwater from the ocean. On the other side is freshwater coming down from California's mountain. And in the middle is the low-lying delta land, much of it below sea level.

About 1,100 miles of earthen walls called levees keep the land dry, and keep the salt- and freshwater from mixing. The situation is shaky now, and it's going to get worse. With climate change, sea level will rise, and there will be more rain and less snow in the mountains. That means there will be more water in the rivers.

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