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Announcement

Join Folks From Across the Water Community at our Water Summit Plus Hear From Water Artists & Celebrate Our Water Journalist of the Year

Our Water Summit on Oct. 30 will take a deep dive on issues critical to our most precious natural resource in the West but it’s so much more.

During our event, you’ll also have a chance to network with people from across the water community from municipal water agencies to irrigation districts, farming and lending organizations to state and federal agencies that manage or regulate water to environmental and other nonprofit organizations.

Karla Nemeth, director of the California Department of Water Resources, will deliver the opening keynote and participants will be treated later in the day to a presentation by visual artists whose work seeks to expand perspectives on how we relate to water.

Announcement

Water Leader Apps Now Available for 2025 Cohort; Agenda Posted for Water Summit, Sponsorship Opportunities Still Available

2025 Water Leader Applications Now Open

Are you an up-and-coming leader in the water world? Applications are now available for our 2025 California Water Leaders cohort, and are due no later than Dec. 5, 2024.

If interested in applying, start by checking out the program requirements. Make sure you have the time to commit to the program next year and approval from your organization to apply.

Water News You Need to Know

Aquafornia news The New York Times

Thursday Top of the Scroll: Water dispute before Supreme Court gives rise to unusual alliances

The Supreme Court on Wednesday appeared to side with the City of San Francisco in its unusual challenge of federal water regulations that it said were too vague and could be interpreted too strictly. The outcome could have sweeping implications for curtailing water pollution offshore and would deal another blow to the Environmental Protection Agency, which has faced a string of losses at the court over its efforts to protect the environment. The case has given rise to unusual alliances, with the city joining oil companies and business groups in siding against the E.P.A. In arguments on Wednesday, it was the conservative justices who seemed the most aligned with a city best known as a liberal bastion. At its core, the case is about human waste and how San Francisco disposes of it — specifically, whether the Clean Water Act of 1972 allowed the E.P.A. to impose generic prohibitions on wastewater released into the Pacific Ocean and to penalize the city.

Related articles:

Aquafornia news Ag Alert

Land values plunge as groundwater law dims farm prospects

The value of farmland in parts of the San Joaquin Valley, California’s agricultural heartland, has fallen rapidly this year as commodity prices lag and implementation of the state’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act casts a shadow on the future of farming in the region. In 2014, when SGMA was adopted, the value of farmland without reliable surface water access began to decline. But within the past several months, those values have plummeted, according to appraisers, realtors and county assessors. “It’s very dramatic,” said Janie Gatzman, owner of Gatzman Appraisal in Stanislaus County, who until last month served as president of the California chapter of the American Society of Farm Managers and Rural Appraisers. …  The sharp drop in land values this year—a decade after SGMA was adopted—came as implementation of the law ramped up. This year, state regulators intervened for the first time.

Other groundwater and agriculture articles:​

Aquafornia news CNN

The system that moves water around the Earth is off balance for the first time in human history

Humanity has thrown the global water cycle off balance “for the first time in human history,” fueling a growing water disaster that will wreak havoc on economies, food production and lives, according to a landmark new report. Decades of destructive land use and water mismanagement have collided with the human-caused climate crisis to put “unprecedented stress” on the global water cycle, said the report published Wednesday by the Global Commission on the Economics of Water, a group of international leaders and experts. … Disruptions to the water cycle are already causing suffering. Nearly 3 billion people face water scarcity. Crops are shriveling and cities are sinking as the groundwater beneath them dries out.

Other global study article:​

Aquafornia news

Announcement: Join folks from across the water community at our Water Summit, hear from water artists & celebrate our journalist of the year

Our Water Summit on Oct. 30 will take a deep dive on issues critical to our most precious natural resource in the West but it’s so much more.  During our event, you’ll also have a chance to network with people from across the water community from municipal water agencies to irrigation districts, farming and lending organizations to state and federal agencies that manage or regulate water to environmental and other nonprofit organizations. Karla Nemeth, director of the California Department of Water Resources, will deliver the opening keynote and participants will be treated later in the day to a presentation by visual artists whose work seeks to expand perspectives on how we relate to water.

Online Water Encyclopedia

Aquapedia background Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta Map

Wetlands

Sacramento National Wildlife RefugeWetlands are among the world’s most important and hardest-working ecosystems, rivaling rainforests and coral reefs in productivity. 

They produce high levels of oxygen, filter water pollutants, sequester carbon, reduce flooding and erosion and recharge groundwater.

Bay-Delta Tour participants viewing the Bay Model

Bay Model

Operated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Bay Model is a giant hydraulic replica of San Francisco Bay and the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. It is housed in a converted World II-era warehouse in Sausalito near San Francisco.

Hundreds of gallons of water are pumped through the three-dimensional, 1.5-acre model to simulate a tidal ebb and flow lasting 14 minutes.

Aquapedia background Colorado River Basin Map

Salton Sea

As part of the historic Colorado River Delta, the Salton Sea regularly filled and dried for thousands of years due to its elevation of 237 feet below sea level.

The most recent version of the Salton Sea was formed in 1905 when the Colorado River broke through a series of dikes and flooded the seabed for two years, creating California’s largest inland body of water. The Salton Sea, which is saltier than the Pacific Ocean, includes 130 miles of shoreline and is larger than Lake Tahoe

Lake Oroville shows the effects of drought in 2014.

Drought

Drought—an extended period of limited or no precipitation—is a fact of life in California and the West, with water resources following boom-and-bust patterns. During California’s 2012–2016 drought, much of the state experienced severe drought conditions: significantly less precipitation and snowpack, reduced streamflow and higher temperatures. Those same conditions reappeared early in 2021 prompting Gov. Gavin Newsom in May to declare drought emergencies in watersheds across 41 counties in California.