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 administration is considering terminating the lease
on the Army Corps of Engineers’ Risk Management Center, which
current and former employees say is integral to oversight of
hundreds of dams and thousands of miles of levees nationwide. …
The uncertain future facing the Risk Management Center comes as
the Trump administration has fired employees at other agencies
— like the Bureau of Reclamation and National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration — also integral to dam safety. Now,
some dam safety experts worry the public will be at greater
risk of flooding and other potentially life-threatening
situations given the current trajectory.
Other federal water and public resource agency news:
The Environmental Protection Agency plans to eliminate its
scientific research arm, firing as many as 1,155 chemists,
biologists, toxicologists and other scientists, according to
documents reviewed by Democrats on the House Committee on
Science, Space and Technology. The strategy is part of
large-scale layoffs, known as a “reduction in force,” being
planned by the Trump administration, which is intent on
shrinking the federal work force. Lee Zeldin, the administrator
of the E.P.A., has said he wants to eliminate 65 percent of the
agency’s budget. That would be a drastic reduction — one that
experts said could hamper clean water and wastewater
improvements, air quality monitoring, the cleanup of toxic
industrial sites, and other parts of the agency’s mission.
The recent rain and snow are much needed for Central
California’s water supply. The latest set of storms is already
sparking talk of a “Miracle March.” “January was a really dry
month. It was really a bust for the amount of water we got,
very little snowpack,” said Steven Haugen, watermaster for the
Kings River Water Association. Haugen is paying close attention
to Central California’s snowpack, which he called our biggest
reservoir, holding more than a million acre-feet of water. Our
actual reservoirs are almost all at or above historical
averages, except nearby Millerton and to the south, Castaic.
Both are just below their average levels for this time of year.
Utah is launching a plan to pay farmers to leave some of their
irrigation water in the Colorado River system. The Colorado
River Authority of Utah board has approved the first round of
applicants for the state’s new Demand Management Pilot Program.
It includes more than a dozen projects along Colorado River
tributaries in eastern and southeastern Utah. The program will
use up to $4.2 million of state money to compensate farmers who
temporarily forgo using some of their water in 2025 and 2026. …
Utah leaders hope quantifying the water those projects save
will help the state avoid mandatory cutbacks as it looks toward
a renegotiated Colorado River agreement in 2026.
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.
