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.
The workshop, April 10 in Sacramento, is among the events, tours and publications the Water Education Foundation offers to help you get beyond the stream of recent national headlines and better understand how water is managed and moved across the Golden State:
Go beyond the recent headlines and gain a deeper understanding of how water flows across California during our Water 101 Workshop on April 10. If you join our Central Valley Tour happening April 23-25, you can stand atop Terminus Dam where the federal government released water from Lake Kaweah in late January.
The Water Education Foundation, which celebrated its 48th birthday this week, is proud to be the only organization in California providing comprehensive, unbiased information about the most critical resource across the West. We provide myriad resources to help put issues in context and to inspire a deep understanding of and appreciation for water, including educational materials, tours of key watersheds, water news, water leadership training and events that bring together diverse voices.
The Trump administration has appointed Josh F.W. Cook as head
of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Pacific Southwest
Office, overseeing federal environmental policy in California,
Arizona, Hawaii, Nevada, the Pacific Islands and 148 Tribal
Nations. Cook, who lives in Chico (Butte County), is a
government and tribal affairs consultant, according to his
LinkedIn account, and has held a handful of government
positions. He spent a decade as chief of staff for former
Republican State Sen. Brian Dahle, R-Bieber (Lassen County) and
has served on advisory committees for the U.S. Forest Service
and Bureau of Land Management. His resume also includes helping
with the emergency response to California’s deadly Camp Fire in
2018.
The leading trade group representing California’s public water
agencies came out Monday against a bill meant to protect the
state from Trump administration rollbacks. The Association of
California Water Agencies adopted an “oppose” position to Sen.
Ben Allen’s SB 601, which would clarify state law to reclassify
all waters that were previously defined as “waters of the
state” prior to the Supreme Court’s 2023 Sackett v. EPA
decision. ACWA senior policy advocate Soren Nelson said in an
email the group has “serious concerns with SB 601, as it would
needlessly complicate the state’s regulatory framework for
protecting water quality, lead to frivolous litigation, and
almost certainly translate into higher water bills for
Californians.”
After days of snow falling in the Sierra, the winter season is
inching closer to recovering from a dry start to the year.
According to snow sensor data from the California Department of
Water Resources, the statewide Sierra snowpack fell to 66% of
average on Jan. 30. On Feb. 28, the date of the last manual
snow survey along Highway 50, the statewide snowpack stood at
85% of average.
… The removal of the four dams on the Klamath, which were
owned by the power utility PacifiCorp, represents the first
real attempt at the kind of river restoration that Indigenous
nations and environmentalists have long demanded. It is the
result of an improbable campaign that spanned close to half a
century, roped in thousands of people, and came within an inch
of collapse several times. Interviews with dozens of people on
all sides of the dam removal fight, some of whom have never
spoken publicly about their roles, reveal a collaborative
achievement with few clear parallels in contemporary
activism.
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.
