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Announcement

Registration Now Open for 2025 Lower Colorado River Tour
Tickets for Other Early 2025 Programs Available in January

The Foundation’s 2025 programming calendar begins in just a few months and is packed with engaging tours, workshops and conferences on key water topics in California and across the West. Seating is limited and tickets go quickly for all our programs, so mark your calendar now so you don’t miss out!

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

Lower Colorado River Tour: March 12-14

Be sure to catch the return of our annual Lower Colorado River Tour as we take you from Hoover Dam to the U.S.-Mexico border and through the Imperial and Coachella valleys to learn about the challenges and opportunities facing the “Lifeline of the Southwest.”

Following the river as it winds through Nevada, Arizona and California, the tour explores infrastructure, farming regions, wildlife refuges and the Salton Sea. Experts discuss river issues, such as water needs, drought management, endangered species and habitat restoration. Get more tour details and register here!

Announcement

There’s Still Time! Support the Water Education Foundation on Giving Tuesday
Your Support Makes a Critical Impact on Water Education in California and the West

Since 1977, the Water Education Foundation has worked to inspire better understanding and catalyze critical conversations about our most vital natural resource: water.

This is not a mission our impartial nonprofit can carry out alone.

Today on Giving Tuesday, a global day of philanthropy, please consider making a tax-deductible donation to support the important work we do to provide impartial education and foster informed decision-making on water issues in California and the West.

Water News You Need to Know

Aquafornia news Los Angeles Times

Wednesday Top of the Scroll: Metropolitan Water District to spend $141 million on Delta tunnel project

The board of California’s largest urban water supplier voted on Tuesday to spend $141.6 million for a large share of the preliminary planning work on the state’s proposed water tunnel in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. With the decision, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California will continue covering nearly half of the preconstruction costs for the proposed 45-mile tunnel beneath the Delta, which Gov. Gavin Newsom says the state needs to protect the water supply in the face of climate change and earthquake risks. “This is about planning for the next 100 years,” said Adán Ortega, Jr., chair of the MWD board. The MWD’s 38-member board decided to approve the funding after heated debate.

Related articles:

Aquafornia news The Washington Post

Supreme Court seems likely to narrow environmental reviews for projects

… The [U.S. Supreme Court] justices heard oral arguments over the controversial stretch of track that would connect the remote Uinta Basin in northeastern Utah to national rail lines, allowing more waxy crude from one of the nation’s largest oil fields to be transported to refineries on the Gulf Coast. On its surface, the case is about the 88-mile rail line, but it has also become a proxy battle over how far federal agencies should go in assessing the environmental impact of highways, pipelines and other projects before deciding whether to approve them.  … Five environmental groups and the county that is home to Vail, Colorado, argue that [the National Environmental Policy Act] calls for a more holistic review, saying the rail project could have devastating impacts on local habitats, could lead to oil spills in the Colorado River and would quintuple oil production, worsening climate change and pollution near refineries in the South.

Related articles:

Aquafornia news The Mercury News

Gov. Gavin Newsom urges completion of California’s largest new reservoir project in 50 years

Gov. Gavin Newsom on Tuesday reaffirmed his support for building Sites Reservoir, a proposed $4.5 billion project that would be the largest new reservoir constructed in California in 50 years, as a way for cities and farms to better prepare for droughts made worse by the warming climate. “We are going to continue to do everything we can to put the pressure on to get this project done,” Newsom said. “We are going to continue to advocate for federal resources,” he added. “Donald Trump, this is your kind of project.” Sites would be California’s eighth largest reservoir, a 13-mile-long off-stream lake that would divert flows from the Sacramento River during wet winters to provide water to 500,000 acres of Central Valley farmlands, and 24 million people, including residents of Santa Clara County, parts of the East Bay and Los Angeles.

Related articles:

Aquafornia news NPR

Listen: Will Trump pay to save the Colorado River? Locals are worried

The Colorado River is shrinking as climate change worsens the Southwestern drought, so the Biden administration has been paying farmers and cities not to use water. It’s spending nearly $5 billion from the Inflation Reduction Act to ensure the nation’s biggest reservoirs don’t go dry. But President-elect Trump’s campaign has threatened to cut that funding. And as KUNC’s Alex Hager reports, people who share the river’s water are worried.

Related articles:

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.