Watch our series of short videos on the importance of the
Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, how it works as a water hub for
California and the challenges it is facing.
When a person opens a spigot to draw a glass of water, he or she
may be tapping a source close to home or hundreds of miles away.
Water gets to taps via a complex web of aqueducts, canals and
groundwater.
Learn more about our team in the office and on the Board of
Directors and how you can support our nonprofit mission by
donating in someone’s honor or memory, or becoming a regular
contributor or supporting specific projects.
Unlike California’s majestic rivers and massive dams and
conveyance systems, groundwater is out of sight and underground,
though no less plentiful. The state’s enormous cache of
underground water is a great natural resource and has contributed
to the state becoming the nation’s top agricultural producer and
leader in high-tech industries.
A new era of groundwater management began in 2014 in California
with the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act. The landmark law
turned 10 in 2024, with many challenges still ahead.
Go beyond the headlines and gain a
deeper understanding of how water is managed and moved across
California during our annual Water
101 Workshop on March 26.
One of our most popular events, the daylong workshop at Cal
State Sacramento’s Harper Alumni Center offers anyone new to
California water issues or newly elected to a water district
board — and anyone who wants a refresher — a chance to gain a
solid statewide grounding on water resources. Leading
experts are on the agenda for the workshop that details
the historical, legal and political facets of water management in
the state.
Happy New Year to all the friends, supporters, readers of articles and participants of the tours and workshops we featured in 2025! We are deeply grateful to each and every person who engaged with us last year.
We have much to look forward to in 2026, especially as we gear up to mark and celebrate the Foundation’s 50th anniversary in 2027!
One of our most exciting projects this year will be replacing our 12-year-old website with a beautifully streamlined version that is mobile-adaptable. It will allow fora more intuitive experience as users conduct research, read our weekday newsfeed or water encyclopedia, and sign up for tours and events.
Along with our new website, we’ll be launching a new and improved Aquafornia newsfeed to better align with our reach across California and the Colorado River Basin. Stay tuned!
New Water Map & Spanish Version of California Water Guide
By summer, we’ll publish an update to our Layperson’s Guide to California Water in English and, for the first time, in Spanish. We will also publish a new Klamath River map to illustrate the nation’s largest dam removal project in the watershed straddling Oregon and California.
With social media, we’ll continue focusing on LinkedIn as our primary go-to channel as we ease off Facebook and X/Twitter where engagement has dropped. But not to fear; we’ll continue posting on Instagram.
Our array of 2026 programming begins later this month when we welcome our incoming California Water Leaders cohort. We’ll be sure to introduce them to you and let you know what thorny California water policy issue they’ll be tackling.
We’ll also be welcoming our third cohort of Colorado River Water Leaders in March.Applications are due Jan. 26 so be sure to get them in soon!
U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla rolled out two new water bills aimed at
easing the state’s growing climate-driven water shortages and
making water supplies more dependable across the state. The
Making Our Communities Resilient through Enhancing Water for
Agriculture, Technology, the Environment, and Residences Act —
the MORE WATER Act — and the Growing Resilient Operations from
Water Savings and Municipal-Agricultural
Reciprocally-beneficial Transactions, — the GROW SMART Act —
have drawn strong backing from regional water agencies, which
praised the measures as important steps toward improving water
reliability and affordability throughout the Golden State.
San Luis Obispo County has designed a new program to support
farmers who wish to stop irrigating their land. The goal: To
reduce overpumping in the Paso Robles Area Groundwater
Basin. It’s one of 21 basins in the state considered
“critically overdrafted” by the California Department of Water
Resources, which means more water is pumped from the basin than
is returned. On Tuesday, the San Luis Obispo County Board of
Supervisors voted 4-0 to create a registry for farmers who
voluntarily decide to fallow their land. … Farmers who enroll
in the program will maintain county property tax benefits
related to their status as agricultural producers. Meanwhile,
contrary to county law, they also will be allowed to resume
irrigating their land when they want to, even if it is fallowed
for more than five years.
Water agencies of all sizes are crafting plans and forming task
forces across local, state and federal entities to protect
infrastructure from the spread of golden mussels, a tiny,
invasive species that has already spread the length of the
state’s network of waterways. In the San Joaquin Valley,
Friant Water Authority is in the midst of another round of
environmental DNA testing, this time on the entire length of
the 152-mile canal, after golden mussel eDNA was detected near
the White River intake in Tulare County. Initially, the
authority hoped the mussel was contained to the southern
reaches of its canal, in the Arvin-Edison Water Storage
District, where State Water Project supplies enter the Friant
system via the Cross Valley Canal.
Developers are descending on a rural desert
community along California’s Mexican border, trying to
build over $15 billion worth of data centers to power Silicon
Valley’s artificial intelligence boom. But concerns over
pollution and Colorado River water use have
turned one of the projects into a charged legal fight. …
Imperial Valley Computer Manufacturing LLC, started
purchasing land for the project in 2024, spending $12 million
on 95 acres in the city of Imperial, as well as $15 million
more for land in the county and nearby city of El Centro,
according to a lawsuit filed last month. … [The] company has
also said that the data center will send its used water
to the Salton Sea, helping reduce air pollution from
the drying body of water.
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.
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.
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.
