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Announcement

Registration for Fall Tours & Water Summit Opening Soon; Keep Informed with Daily Water Newsfeed; Read Our 2024 Annual Report

As we head into summer, be sure to mark your calendars for our popular fall programs which will all be opening for registration soon!

Importantly, we will launch our first-ever Klamath River Tour to visit the watershed and, among other things, see how the river has responded to the dismantling of four obsolete dams. It will not be an annual tour, so don’t miss this opportunity!

Check out the event dates and registration details:

Announcement

There’s Still Time to Support Your Favorite Water Nonprofit on Big Day of Giving!
You have until midnight to donate!

Big Day of Giving is ending soon but you still have until midnight to support the Water Education Foundation’s tours, workshops, publications and other programs with a donation to help us reach our $10,000 fundraising goal - we are only $2,502 away!

At the Foundation, we believe that education is as precious as water. Your donations help us every day to teach K-12 educators how to bring water science into the classroom and to empower future decision-makers through our professional development programs.

Final chance to donate today!

Our portfolio of programs reach many people and in many different ways:

Water News You Need to Know

Aquafornia news E&E News by Politico

Friday Top of the Scroll: EPA issues warning on Clean Water Act ‘weapon’

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin warned states and tribes Thursday not to “leverage” the Clean Water Act to block or impede energy projects approved by the Trump administration. The agency issued a memorandum reiterating states’ and tribes’ “specific and limited” authority to review infrastructure projects for potential water quality effects and announced it would soon propose a regulation on the topic. “Under the last administration, certain states attempted to leverage the Clean Water Act to undercut projects that would boost national and regional development and unleash American energy resources,” Zeldin said in a statement. “With this memorandum, EPA is reinforcing the limits on Clean Water Act section 401 certification to support energy, critical mineral, and infrastructure projects that are key to economic growth and Power the Great American Comeback.”

Related articles:

Aquafornia news The Colorado Sun (Denver)

Front Range (Colo.) cities object to $99M Colorado River water deal

Denver, Aurora, Colorado Springs and Northern Water voiced opposition Wednesday to the Western Slope’s proposal to spend $99 million to buy historic water rights on the Colorado River from Xcel Energy. The Colorado River Water Conservation District has been working for years to buy the water rights tied to Shoshone Power Plant, a small, easy-to-miss hydropower plant off Interstate 70 east of Glenwood Springs. The highly coveted water rights are some of the largest and oldest on the Colorado River in Colorado. The Front Range providers are concerned that any change to the water rights could impact water supplies for millions of city residents, farmers, industrial users and more. … The proposed purchase taps into a decades-old water conflict in Colorado: Most of the state’s water flows west of the Continental Divide; most of the population lives to the east; and water users are left to battle over how to share it.

Other Colorado River Basin news:

Aquafornia news KQED (San Francisco)

California’s snowpack shrinks, igniting concerns of early wildfires

California’s snowpack is dwindling, and climate scientists believe another record-breaking hot summer could be in the cards, ramping up the possibility of an early fire season. The state’s snowpack is at 14% of average peak snowpack, down from 96% on April 1 — the date snow scientists consider the height of the snowpack, according to the state. The snowpack is melting a little faster than usual, but state scientists said the rate of snowmelt isn’t entirely abnormal. However, climate scientists believe early snowmelt this year could be partly due to human-caused climate change. Andy Reising, manager of the California Department of Water Resources’ snow surveys and water supply forecasting unit, said it’s important to understand that snow is not melting uniformly across all watersheds.

Other California water supply and snowpack news:

Aquafornia news High Country News (Paonia, Colo.)

USGS’ biological research arm could vanish next week

All 1,200 scientists and staff at the U.S. Geological Survey’s biological research arm are on edge this week as they wait to learn whether they’ll still have jobs come Monday. For weeks, the biologists who work in the division, known as the Ecosystems Mission Area, have watched two parallel threats unfold. Most immediate is the expected firing of most division staff as soon as next week. … The second threat is even more serious: If the White House has its way, its proposed 2026 budget would eliminate the Ecosystems Mission Area, or EMA, altogether. … The elimination of EMA would have profound consequences. … It would erase bipartisan and widely respected programs that, for example, monitor waterfowl populations for game agencies, track contamination in drinking water, convene time- and cost-saving collaborations between agencies, universities and nonprofits, and foster the next generation of fish and wildlife professionals. … EMA scientists also monitor toxic chemicals in water, and are one of the only groups looking in private wells

Other USGS news:

Online Water Encyclopedia

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 oxygen levels, 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.