It was initiated in 1995 by Governor Pete Wilson and the Clinton administration to address environmental and water management problems associated with the Bay-Delta system, an intricate web of waterways created at the junction of the San Francisco Bay and the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers and the watershed that feeds them. Today the Bay-Delta system is in serious trouble. Habitats are declining, and some native species are listed as endangered. The system has suffered from impaired water quality. Water supply reliability has declined significantly.
Many levees are structurally weak and present a high risk of failure.
The Bay-Delta is the largest estuary on the west coasts of North and South America, home to plants and animals found nowhere else on the planet. More than 22 million Californians rely on the bay-Delta system for all or some of their drinking water. There is concern that Delta levees are vulnerable to failure, especially during earthquakes or periods of high runoff. Such a failure could flood farmland and wildlife habitat, and could contaminate the water supply and result in an interruption of water deliveries for urban and agricultural users. Millions of birds migrate through, and live in, the Bay-Delta, as do more than 53 species of fish, including one of the most productive natural salmon fisheries on the West Coast.