ANTIOCH, Calif. (CN) — Founded on a lush plain of the largest estuary on the West Coast of North America shortly after gold was discovered, Antioch’s fortunes have always risen and fallen with the delta tides.
One of California’s oldest settlements, what started as a ranch town morphed decades ago into an industrial city due to its riverside locale and proximity to San Francisco. Family farms gave way to coal and copper mines, mills and warehouses took over downtown and the city steadily grew into one of the Bay Area’s largest.
The city’s official motto, “Opportunity Lives Here,” hints at the myriad industries that have come and gone since the Gold Rush, but its fate remains undeniably tied to the San Joaquin River. The river, the state’s second largest and one of the most heavily dammed in the West, is the main source of water for over 110,000 Antioch residents.
But for over 50 years the lower stages of the river and the encompassing Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta have been inundated with salt caused by state and federal water projects, increased agricultural runoff, drought and sea level rise.
The mounting challenges have rendered the city’s claim useless for large stretches of the year, especially during California’s increasingly common droughts.
To regain access to its most vital resource and prepare for climate change, Antioch is attempting to control its water destiny by building the delta’s first desalination plant.
“We saw what was coming with the environment,” said John Samuelson, Antioch’s city engineer. “This is about protecting our water rights.”
Antioch’s pre-1914 water rights give it nearly unfettered ability to pump from the San Joaquin, but the value of the privilege continues to be watered down.
The problem for Antioch isn’t water availability — it’s water quality.
Prior to the construction of major 20th century dams such as Shasta, Friant and Oroville, salty or brackish water was rarely an issue for most farmers and towns in the delta. Even in dry years, water from the five rivers — including the San Joaquin — that flow into the delta were able to slow the daily saltwater tides and “rinse or freshen” out the estuary.
The sprawling inland estuary is formed by the confluence of two primary rivers — the Sacramento from the north and the San Joaquin from the southeast. The rivers eventually join near Antioch before flowing through the Carquinez Strait to the San Francisco Bay.
The main cause of Antioch’s water woes are the Central Valley and State Water projects. The mammoth projects, jointly operated by the feds and state, pull enormous amounts of water from pumps in the south delta where salinity isn’t a major concern.
Though delta plumbing projects provide 25 million residents with drinking water and irrigate over 3 million acres of farmland, they greatly reduce the amount of freshwater left for the fish, birds and cities like Antioch that rely on the estuary to survive.
When the pumps are humming and delivering water to farmers and cities south of the delta, San Joaquin River flows are weakened and less fresh water makes it downstream to Antioch. The pumping allows saltwater to creep further into the delta and tarnish water quality, a problem that is exacerbated during the state’s notorious dry spells.
The feds and state are required to abide by pumping rules intended to ensure there is an adequate amount of freshwater circulating through the delta at all times. But critics say the guidelines are broken routinely and aren’t strict enough to protect the struggling ecosystem and its endangered salmon populations.