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Announcement

Apply for 2025 Water Leaders; Save the Dates for Early 2025 Programs; Buy Gifts for the Water Wonk in Your Life!
Registration Opens Dec. 12 for Lower Colorado River Tour

As we wrap up our year at the Water Education Foundation, we are busy looking ahead to our 2025 slate of engaging tours, workshops and conferences on key water topics in California and across the West. Make sure to save the dates below!

Meanwhile, as we approach the holidays, we want to remind everyone:

  • Applications for our 2025 California Water Leaders cohort are due Dec. 5. Don’t forget to view a video of a Q&A session for a program overview and tips on making a strong application for the competitive program.
  • We will soon announce a holiday sale of our popular maps and guides on key water regions and topics so you can get gifts for the water wonk in your life. Stay tuned!
  • Giving Tuesday is right after Thanksgiving and a national day to support nonprofits. We’ll be sure to let you know how to support water education in the West on that day.
Announcement

Get Tips to Apply for 2025 California Water Leaders Cohort; Apps Due Dec. 5

Water Leaders logoIf you are an up-and-coming leader in the water world who is thinking about applying for our 2025 California Water Leaders cohort, you can view a virtual Q&A session to get tips on applying for the competitive program.

During the session, Jenn Bowles, our executive director, and other Water Education Foundation team members provided an overview of the program and gave advice on submitting an application by Dec. 5, 2024.

Water News You Need to Know

Aquafornia news The New York Times

Wednesday Top of the Scroll: Bomb cyclone could bring heavy rain and winds to California and Pacific Northwest

A historically strong storm system with the strength of a hurricane whipped damaging winds through the Pacific Northwest overnight leading to power outages across the region. It was creating large ocean waves and ushering in a drenching atmospheric river that is expected to continue soaking Northern California. … In the winter outlook from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Climate Prediction Center, forecasters warned that the season’s storm paths would favor abundant rainfall across the Northwest, a pattern often associated with La Niña … As of now, the Pacific Ocean is still in a neutral phase and not quite meeting La Niña criteria. During a neutral phase, less predictable weather patterns can dominate, something Dr. Johnson called “weather wild cards.”

Related articles: 

Aquafornia news The New York Times

Trump promises clean water. Will he clean up ‘forever chemicals’?

These chemicals are in the tap water of the majority of Americans, and the Trump administration could decide their fate. No, not fluoride, the cavity-fighter that Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President-elect Donald J. Trump’s health secretary pick, wants out of public drinking water. Rather, they’re harmful “forever chemicals,” also known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances or PFAS. For all of Mr. Kennedy’s talk, and his contentious views on fluoride, larger battles loom over chemicals in the water we drink. Public health advocates worry that federal efforts to protect the public against PFAS and replace lead pipes could unravel under a Trump presidency.

Related article:

Aquafornia news Deseret News (Salt Lake City, Utah)

The feds are chipping in to save water in Washington County

The Washington County Water Conservancy District was selected as one of five recipients of federal funding to put dollars to work for saving water in the West — an urgent goal due to decades of drought. … In Utah’s Washington County, the $1 billion system will get a boost of $641,222 for new water treatment facilities, advanced purification technology, new conveyance pipelines and storage reservoirs, according to the bureau’s release on Monday. The southern Utah area has often come under attack for what its critics say is excessive water use — which the district disputes.

Other Colorado River articles:

Aquafornia news CBS 8 San Diego

$310M in disaster funds for San Diego wastewater plant

San Diego’s congressional delegation Tuesday praised President Joe Biden for including $310 million for the South Bay International Wastewater Treatment Plant in proposed disaster relief funding. If passed, the money would add to a previously awarded $400 million in federal funding to get the plant running at full capacity and even double its capabilities. … In May, the local Congressional delegation, including Vargas and Reps. Scott Peters and Sara Jacobs, both D-San Diego, and Rep. Mike Levin, D-Dana Point, called on the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to begin an investigation into pollutants from the ongoing sewage crisis at the border. 

Other water quality articles:

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.