Colorado River and Salton Sea

Welcome to the home page for State implementation of the 2003 Colorado River Quantification Settlement Agreement and Salton Sea ecosystem restoration legislation. This legislation created new responsibilities for the Resources Agency and for the Departments of Fish and Game and Water Resources. Specifics of the new legislative requirements can be found by following the summary link provided at the left.

The Colorado River is California's largest interstate water source. Rights to use of Colorado River water have been established through a complex framework of statutes and court decisions. California had historically been able to use as much as 800,000 acre-feet annually more than its basic interstate apportionment (consumptive use of 4.4 million acre-feet annually plus half of any surplus water) because of wet hydrologic conditions and because other Colorado River Basin states were not using their full apportionments. By the early 1990s Arizona and Nevada neared use of their full apportionments, setting the stage for negotiations among California's local agency users of Colorado River water that eventually culminated in execution of the QSA in October 2003.

To enable the QSA local agencies to reach agreement on how to reduce their use of Colorado River water to California's basic annual apportionment, the QSA implementing legislation provided that the State take responsibility for specified QSA environmental mitigation obligations relating to the Salton Sea and for Salton Sea ecosystem restoration. The Secretary for Resources is to prepare an ecosystem restoration plan by the end of 2006. The Department of Fish and Game is to manage a restoration fund to be used for implementing fish and wildlife conservation measures in the Salton Sea and lower Colorado River ecosystems. The Department of Water Resources is to carry out specified water transfers that provide revenues for the restoration fund.