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.
Are you an emerging leader ready to
make a greater impact on California water policy and management?
Applications are now being accepted for the Water Education
Foundation’s 2027
California Water Leaders cohort, with submissions
due Dec. 3.
Designed for rising professionals in California’s water
community, the program offers participants an unparalleled
opportunity to deepen their understanding of water issues, expand
their professional network and develop leadership skills
alongside a cohort of peers from across the state.
Visit the
application page, paying close attention
to frequently asked questions and mandatory
program dates to ensure you can fully
participate.
Confirm that you have your organization’s support and can
commit the time necessary to partipating in the program.
Interested in learning more? Join our executive director, Jenn
Bowles, and other members of the Foundation team for
a virtual Q&A session at 12:30 p.m. on Nov.
10. We’ll provide an overview of the program and
share tips for submitting a strong application. Sign up here.
What role will desalination play in
the arid West? That topic is one of many engaging conversations
that will be explored at our Oct. 29 Water
Summit revolving around this year’s theme,
Stewarding a New Era in Western Water.
Led by Central Arizona Project’s General Manager Brenda Burman,
the panel will discuss all topics worth their
salt - from emerging desalination technologies to the
latest developments in innovative desalination programs to the
regulatory challenges and opportunities that face the region.
The panel of accomplished speakers will provide deep
insight on desalination’s implications for water management
in the West.
The Water Summit is the Foundation’s premier event of
the year and returns to Sacramento on Oct. 29
with leading policymakers and experts addressing critical water
issues in California and across the West. Capacity is
limited and registration closes soon, so grab your ticket
here while they’re still available!
The Central Arizona Project is pulling financial
support for cloud-seeding efforts meant to boost snowfall in
the Colorado River headwaters, the latest casualty of
a widening Colorado River water war. CAP had provided some
$447,000 to the program in Wyoming, Colorado and Utah
last year, and would have provided up to $525,000 in
the coming year, rising gradually to $750,000 by 2036. Instead,
the CAP board’s majority rejected renewal at a
time when states are fighting over the river and
there’s no clear documentation of where the water ends
up. The board on Nov. 5 decided not to renew a 10-year
agreement that in the past used funds from water agencies in
all seven Colorado River states to spray silver iodide
molecules into advancing storms in the Rocky Mountains to
squeeze more precipitation. The collaboration is meant to boost
the flows that all seven states rely upon, though some of the
detractors questioned whether any of the resulting water
actually reaches Arizona.
The state’s water rights office says there is excess
water – up to 1.13 million acre feet – going unused on the
Kings River, which could open the system to a flood of
water seekers. The Administrative Hearing Office (AHO)
will hold a hearing Jan. 19, 2027 to delve
into whether the Water Resources Control Board should revoke
the 1967 “fully appropriated stream” designation on the Kings
River. If that happens, it would open the river to new
water permit applications, according to the AHO’s
hearing notice. This all stems from a legal fight that
started in 2017 when the the Semitropic Water Storage District
in Kern County filed an application for Kings River flood
flows. … Applicants had been battling it out through
various AHO proceedings, with the last one held in
2024. So, the recent AHO notice came as a bit of a
surprise that applicants said they were carefully sorting
through.
Come January, Torrance will start implementing a ban on
using drinking water on nonfunctional turf throughout the
city. The City Council this week unanimously approved
amending a local ordinance to implement the ban, and discussed
when it will go into effect and how it will be enforced. A
second reading and approval of the amendment will take place
before the end of the year. This amendment is required by state
law through Assembly Bill 1572, which was
signed into law in 2023. The bill establishes a phased
prohibition on using potable water – or drinking water – on
nonfunctional turf. … AB 1572 determined that
using potable water to irrigate nonfunctional
turf – ornamental lawns that are not regularly used
for recreation or public gatherings – is “wasteful and
incompatible with state policy related to climate
change.”
State officials have approved the final key permit
needed to build the largest new reservoir in California in 50
years, which supporters say will supply water to
millions of Californians from the Bay Area to Los Angeles to
reduce the impacts of droughts — but opponents worry will harm
the environment. On Wednesday night, the State Water Resources
Control Board voted 5-0 to provide water rights to
Sites Reservoir. The proposed 13-mile-long
off-stream reservoir would be built in rural ranchlands in
Colusa County, 70 miles northwest of Sacramento near the town
of Maxwell. With two 300-feet high earthen dams and 9 other
smaller dams 20- to 100-foot-high, the project would divert
water from the Sacramento River during wet
winter months to supply water to 24 million Californians and
500,000 acres of farmland in the Central Valley during dry
periods. Estimated to cost $6.2 to $6.8 billion,
the plan is designed to offset climate change, which
threatens to melt the state’s Sierra snowpack in the coming
decades. … Construction is set to begin by next
July.
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.
No portion of the West has been immune to drought during the last
century and it occurs with much greater frequency in the West
than in any other region of the country.
