The Ronald B. Robie papers consist of files and documents assembled by Robie during his years with the Assembly Committee on Water, the State Water Resources Control Board, and the California Department of Water Resources. The collection contains materials whose dates span from 1963-1982; the majority, however, are concentrated in the period from 1967-1979.

A large portion of the material to be found in the collection is made up of copies of Robie's incoming and outgoing correspondence (as well as letters neither to nor from him) clippings, and office memoranda. Also present in significant amounts are legal papers, including briefs field during the late 1960s and early 1970s on New Melones Dam, the Delta, and the American River; a collection of legal opinions out of the Department of Water Resources; and documentation of miscellaneous other litigation. Binders (often with indexes) were compiled on topics such as the Dos Rios Dam Hearings; the Study Project on the Water Quality Control Program (which resulted in recommendations incorporated into the Porter-Cologne bill); Water Quality Control Actions taken by the State Water Resources Control Board; the California Water Advisory Panel; and the Governor's Commission to Review Water Rights Law. These contain very focused materials and may include reports, minutes of meetings, transcripts of testimony, charts and other types of documents.

Robie has also kept copies of over 70 speeches by 40 prominent commentators on the water scene. Twenty-three binders, accumulated during Robie's term as Director of the Department of Water Resources, contain memoranda of activities by various staff members, providing an inside view of the workings of the organization.

The Department of Water Resources years represent the largest group of materials in the collection; the most extensively documented topic is the process of negotiating the Peripheral Canal, primarily during the years 1977-1980. A notable weak spot is documentation of the Peripheral Canal issue after it came up for public referendum as Proposition 9. Virtually absent, also, is discussion of the 1976-1977 drought.