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.
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.
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As atmospheric rivers blasted across California this year, they
brought epic amounts of rain and snow follwing a three-year
drought.
Devastating and deadly floods hit parts of the state and now all
eyes are on the potential for more flooding, particularly in
the San Joaquin Valley as the record amount of snow in the
Sierras melts with warmer temperatures.
With anticipated sea level rise and other impacts of a changing
climate, flood management is increasingly critical in California.
It may be the dog days of summer but it’s a busy time at the
Water Education Foundation as we prep for our fall events!
Space is becoming limited for one of our most popular water
excursions, the three-day Northern California
Tour in mid-October.
Registration opens in just a few weeks for our premier annual
event, the Water Summit, on Oct. 30 in
Sacramento. Make sure you’re among the first to know this year’s
theme by signing up for Foundation
announcements.
While you’re signing up for announcements, you can also sign
up for our weekday water newsfeed known as Aquafornia to help you stay in the
know.
Registration Now Open for Northern California Tour:
October 16-18
Registration is now open for
our popular Northern California
Tour October 16-18, and seats always fill
quickly! This 3-day, 2-night excursion across the
Sacramento Valley travels north from Sacramento to Oroville,
Redding and Shasta Lake.
Drought is back in California for the first time in nearly a
year. The update from the U.S. Drought Monitor comes as
firefighters battle the state’s largest wildfire of 2024 near
Chico. As of midday Thursday, the Park Fire had burned more
than 71,000 acres across Butte and Tehama counties and was
approximately 3% contained. According to Thursday’s update,
“moderate drought” is isolated to Northern California, while
“abnormally dry” spots are scattered across the state.
Former Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt is warning that
negotiations over how to share a drought-stricken Colorado
River among Western states are moving too slowly — creating a
potential melee over dwindling supplies — and blaming the Biden
administration for failing to aggressively intervene. A series
of existing agreements for management of the Colorado River
will expire at the end of 2026, which prompted officials from
the seven states that share the river to begin formal
negotiations more than a year ago. Those discussions largely
center on how the states will share the pain of a shrinking
water supply. Some estimates suggest the 1,450-mile-long river
contains 20 percent less water than it did in 2000 due to
persistent drought.
There’s another proposal on the table to build a pipeline from
Lake Powell, but the water wouldn’t go to St. George. Arizona
lawmakers this month introduced legislation that would
fund a pipeline to bring water from Lake Powell to three tribes
with Colorado River rights. The
$5 billion deal — negotiated by the tribes, the federal
government and the state of Arizona in May — includes $1.75
billion for the pipeline, and now needs approval from Congress.
Noting that Kern County residents could suffer “urgent impacts”
to their drinking water from continued agricultural groundwater
overpumping, staff at the state Water Resources Control Board
announced Thursday they are recommending the entire Kern
subbasin be put on probation. Probation is the first step
toward a possible state pumping take over. A hearing before the
Water Board is set for Feb. 20, 2025. The finding was a blow to
area water managers who had hoped a new groundwater plan
submitted in May would address concerns about its 2022 plan,
which was deemed inadequate in 2023. Managers of Kern’s
20 groundwater sustainability agencies had worked since then to
revamp the plan.
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.
