The San Francisco Bay-Delta Estuary conveys the waters of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers to the Pacific Ocean. The Estuary provides habitat for several varieties of waterfowl and aquatic life as well as providing a needed winter environment site for migrating waterfowl and a spawning area for anadromous fish. It's 1600 square miles of wetlands and waterways host a very diverse collection of activities, from residential life to commercial fishing.

The Delta is located at the northern end of the San Francisco Estuary at the confluence of the southward-flowing Sacramento River and the northward-flowing San Joaquin River. The Delta becomes an intricate lattice composed of 700 miles of channels and sloughs extending for approximately. The Delta also includes 57 islands, 1,100 miles of levees and thousands of acres of marshes, mudflats, riparian habitat and farmland.

California's birth as the golden state also signaled the beginning of problems for the Bay-Delta. The gold rush of the late 19th century was not only approached with traditional mining methods, but with hydraulic mining as well. By utilizing high-pressure water to blast away a hillside, massive amounts of sediment was flushed into the rivers, thus altering the channels. This had far reaching effects including increasing flood dangers and damages, decreasing water quality due to the rising levels of trace elements, and lessening the accessibility of the region to shipping.

In an effort to alleviate these problems, many channels were dredged to restore their original depths. However, this unwittingly created another environmental issue that would not be recognized for years.

The residue that was dredged from the canals was used to build levees for farmland. This actually increased the amount of prime farmland available in this region. However, over time, the levees began to subside on their peat moss bases and required increasing levels of required maintenance.

The Delta continued to change. Efforts to increase flood control and provide a reliable source of water for the state's growing cities, expanding agriculture and expanding industrial base eventually led to the creation of one of the largest systems of dams, levees, canals and aqueducts in the world. Although this remarkable infrastructure fueled California's growth to become the world's eighth largest economy, it came at the expense of damaging the delicate Bay-Delta ecosystem.