The driest start to the calendar year in recorded history is
taking a toll on water resources during California’s third
year of drought. Find resources to stay up-to-date with the
latest on drought.
Some people in California and across the West struggle to access
safe, reliable and affordable water to meet their everyday needs
for drinking, cooking and sanitation.
There are many ways to support our nonprofit mission by donating
in someone’s honor or memory, becoming a regular contributor or
supporting specific projects.
Twenty-two early to mid-career
water professionals from across California have been chosen for
the 2023 William R. Gianelli Water Leaders Class, the Water
Education Foundation’s highly competitive and respected career
development program.
This Water Leaders cohort includes engineers, lawyers, resource
specialists, scientists and others from a range of public and
private entities and nongovernmental organizations from
throughout the state. The roster for the 2023
class can be found
here.
Attendance at our
annual Water
101 Workshop includes the option of
participating in a daylong ‘watershed’ journey on Friday,
Feb. 24, that will take you from the foothills of
the Sierra Nevada, along the American River and into the
Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
The tour includes an on-the-water lunch cruise aboard the
River City Queen as we head down the
Sacramento River from the confluence of the American River
to the community of Freeport, the “Gateway to the Delta.”
Among the tour stops are Folsom Lake, Nimbus Dam, salmon spawning
habitat in the American River, Freeport Regional Water
Facility, Stone Lakes National Wildlife Refuge,
Delta farmland and the Delta Cross Channel.
Led by Foundation staff and featuring a host of other water
experts, the tour will also include a firsthand look at efforts
to better handle the effects of climate change through a
“Supershed
Approach” that stretches from the headwaters to the valley
floor.
One of the best places to see how dramatically big storms this
winter have changed California’s water picture is three hours
north of the Bay Area, in the foothills east of Sacramento
Valley. There, Lake Oroville, the second-largest reservoir in
California and a key component of the state’s water system, has
undergone a breathtaking transformation. Sixteen months ago,
the reservoir was so parched from severe drought that it was
just 22% full. For the first time since it opened in 1967, its
power plant had shut down because there wasn’t enough water to
spin the turbines and generate electricity. Now Oroville
reservoir is 65% full. Since its lowest point on Sept. 30,
2021, the massive lake’s level has risen 182 feet, boosted by
nine atmospheric river storms in January.
It’s a crisis nearly 100 years in the making: Seven states —
all reliant on a single mighty river as a vital source of water
— failed to reach an agreement this week on how best
to reduce their use of supplies from the rapidly shrinking
Colorado River. At the heart of the feud is the “Law of
the River,” a body of agreements, court decisions, contracts
and decrees that govern the river’s use and date back to 1922,
when the Colorado River Compact first divided river
flows among the states. But as California argues most
strongly for strict adherence to this system of water
apportionment, the other states say it makes little sense when
the river’s largest reservoir, Lake Mead, continues to decline
toward “dead pool” level, which would effectively cut off the
Southwest from its water lifeline. The Law of the River, they
say, is getting in the way of a solution.
Fifteen Native American tribes will get a total of $580 million
in federal money this year for water rights settlements, the
Biden administration announced Thursday. The money will help
carry out the agreements that define the tribes’
rights to water from rivers and other sources and pay for
pipelines, pumping stations, and canals that deliver it to
reservations. “Water rights are crucial to ensuring the health,
safety and empowerment of Tribal communities,” U.S. Interior
Secretary Deb Haaland said in a statement Thursday that
acknowledged the decades many tribes have waited for the
funding. Access to reliable, clean water and basic sanitation
facilities on tribal lands remains a challenge across many
Native American reservations.
Twenty-two early to mid-career water professionals from
across California have been chosen for the 2023 William R.
Gianelli Water Leaders Class, the Water Education Foundation’s
highly competitive and respected career development program.
This Water Leaders cohort includes engineers, lawyers, resource
specialists, scientists and others from a range of public and
private entities and nongovernmental organizations from
throughout the state. The roster for the 2023
class can be found
here. The Water Leaders program, led by
Foundation Executive Director Jennifer
Bowles, deepens knowledge on water, enhances
individual leadership skills and prepares participants to take
an active, cooperative approach to decision-making about water
resource issues. Leading experts and top policymakers
serve as mentors to class members.
Wetlands are among the most
important and hardest-working ecosystems in the world, rivaling
rain forests and coral reefs in productivity of life.
They produce high levels of oxygen, filter toxic chemicals out of
water, sequester carbon, reduce flooding and erosion, recharge
groundwater and provide a
diverse range of recreational opportunities from fishing and
hunting to photography. They also serve as critical habitat for
wildlife, including a large percentage of plants and animals on
California’s endangered species
list.
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.
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.
