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Announcement

Registration Now Open for Water 101 Workshop & Central Valley Tour
Grab a Coveted Sponsorship Opportunity for 2025 Foundation Programs

Registration is now open for our next slate of spring programs, part of a year packed with engaging tours, workshops and conferences on key water topics in California and across the West.

Seating is always limited for our events and tickets for our first water tour of 2025 – along the Lower Colorado River in March – have been going fast!

Current Foundation member organizations receive access to coveted sponsorship opportunities for our tours and events, all of which are prime networking opportunities for the water professionals in attendance! Contact Nick Gray for more information.

Announcement

Klamath or Bust! Learn What’s on Tap at the Water Education Foundation in 2025

Happy New Year to all the friends, supporters, readers and participants of the tours, articles and workshops we featured in 2024! We’re grateful to each and every person who engaged with us last year.

As we turn the page to 2025, one of our most exciting projects will be a first-ever Klamath River Basin Tour in September. We’ll visit some of the sites where four dams came down along the river’s mainstem, and talk to tribes and farmers in the region and learn from scientists watching the river’s restoration unfold.

While most of our tours span three days, this one will likely stretch to four or possibly five days to accommodate the time to get to this remote watershed straddling the California/Oregon border. Stay tuned for more details!

Our array of 2025 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.

Klamath River in Humboldt County. Credit: Western Rivers ConservancyIn March, we return to the Southwest’s most important river with our Lower Colorado River Tour, and the bus is quickly filling up! We then journey across the San Joaquin Valley on our Central Valley Tour in April and take a deep dive into California’s water hub in May with our signature Bay-Delta Tour.  

Water News You Need to Know

Aquafornia news Los Angeles Times

Friday Top of the Scroll: Trump wants to alter California water policy. Experts say that would hurt state

In one of the first acts of his second term, President Trump is seeking to put his stamp on California water policy by directing the federal government to put “people over fish” and send more water from Northern California to the Central Valley’s farms and Southern California cities. … Karla Nemeth, director of the California Department of Water Resources, said the approach outlined by the president could do substantial harm by putting water supplies at risk as well as protections for vulnerable fish species. Nemeth said Trump’s order, on its own, does not change anything and that the current rules for operating California’s water delivery systems in the Central Valley — which were supported by the state and adopted by the Biden administration in December — remain in effect. Presumably, the president is directing the agencies to again start the lengthy process of revising the framework that governs how the two main water delivery systems, the State Water Project and the federal Central Valley Project, are operated.

Related articles:

Aquafornia news Los Angeles Times

Officials were warned of failing water system before Palisades fire

Los Angeles County officials missed dozens of opportunities for water infrastructure improvements that experts say probably would have enabled firefighters to save more homes during the Palisades fire, public records show. As crews battled the blaze, attempting to extinguish flames that burned huge swaths of L.A. County and killed at least 11 people, some hydrants ran dry. The lack of water has come under scrutiny since the wildfire broke out Jan. 7, with officials scrambling to explain why the 117-million-gallon Santa Ynez Reservoir was left empty for maintenance. But thousands of pages of state, county and municipal records reviewed by The Times show the disaster was years in the making. Red tape, budget shortfalls and government inaction repeatedly stymied plans for water system improvements — including some that specifically cited the need to boost firefighting capacity. Many projects on a list of about three dozen “highest priority” upgrades compiled by county officials in 2013 have yet to break ground in communities devastated by the fires.

Other wildfires and rain articles:

Aquafornia news The Colorado Sun

Federal lawmakers push to revive Colorado River conservation program

A bipartisan group of federal lawmakers wants water users in four Colorado River Basin states to have more time to cut water use through a much-debated conservation program that pays water users to cut back. The lawmakers, including Democratic Sens. John Hickenlooper and Michael Bennet of Colorado, are hoping to extend funding for the System Conservation Pilot Program, saying it will help people explore more ways to respond to prolonged drought in the overstressed river basin. But some Colorado water experts question whether the program can actually deliver on its promises, and even if Congress approves the bill, time is short for potential participants to put their ideas into action before the summer growing season.

Related Colorado River funding articles:

Aquafornia news Voice of San Diego/California Health Report

What has and hasn’t happened in the year since San Diego’s devastating floods

… Extreme flooding events, even in regions typically associated with dry weather like Southern California, are becoming more common as the climate warms. Climate change, driven primarily by burning fossil fuels, is changing weather patterns, leading to heavier and more dangerous downpours that can overwhelm infrastructure designed for more predictable times. But Calix and others impacted by the disaster insist there is another force that exacerbated the flooding, one that also led to what many see as a disjointed and inadequate disaster response: Decades of government neglect and indifference toward San Diego’s lower-income neighborhoods. … Residents say the legacy of discrimination continues to this day through lack of city investment in flood-control infrastructure, and inadequate disaster planning and support for those affected. The result is even greater hardship and precarity for people and communities already on the edge. The situation is also a microcosm of the inequitable distribution of risks from climate change, and an example of the challenges communities and governments must grapple with as floods and other weather-related disasters become more frequent.

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.