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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 The Nevada Independent

Thursday Top of the Scroll: Amodei-backed Nevada public land sales removed from GOP budget bill

A controversial provision backed by Rep. Mark Amodei (R-NV) to sell hundreds of thousands of acres of federally owned land in Nevada and Utah to generate revenue for Republicans’ tax and spending bill has been stripped out of the legislation by GOP leadership at the behest of Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-MT). … To that end, Rep. Dina Titus (D-NV) introduced an amendment during the Rules Committee’s marathon markup Wednesday to strip the Clark County acreage from the bill, while Rep. Susie Lee (D-NV) offered an amendment to take out land sales for parcels in Utah that run alongside a proposed water pipeline route that concerned water managers in other Colorado River states, including Nevada.

Other public land sale and budget bill news:

Aquafornia news San Francisco Chronicle

California’s extraordinary tree die-off may finally be easing

One of the largest tree die-offs in California history, which has turned evergreen forests into a bleak canvas of oranges and browns, appears to be subsiding after nearly a decade of wreckage. New data from the U.S. Forest Service shows that the number of trees that perished in California last year hit a 10-year low. The 6.6 million trees counted as dead is still above normal, scientists say, but it marks a major letup in the run of drought, bugs and disease that’s decimated forests across the state. The epidemic peaked in 2016 with 62 million dead trees. The improvement, revealed in the preliminary results of Forest Service aerial surveys, is credited to wet weather. … Healthy forests are vital, notably for ecosystems, water supplies, carbon storage and communities reliant on forest recreation and the timber trade. Large numbers of dead trees can also increase the risk of wildfire. 

Aquafornia news The Mercury News (San Jose, Calif.)

State funders criticize pace and progress on $2.7 billion plan to build new reservoir in Santa Clara County

In an ominous sign for an already struggling project, state officials on Wednesday said they are unhappy with the lack of progress over plans by the Santa Clara Valley Water District to build a huge new dam near Pacheco Pass and Henry W. Coe State Park in Santa Clara County. Members of the California Water Commission, an 8-member agency appointed by Gov. Gavin Newsom that tentatively committed $504 million in state bond funding seven years ago to the $2.7 billion project — and still could revoke it — expressed frustration at the district’s shifting timelines and lack of specifics and accomplishments. … On Wednesday, district officials told the water commission that they still haven’t secured major permits needed to start construction, haven’t secured water rights, and only have completed 30% of the design. They said they wouldn’t be able to break ground until 2029 and won’t complete construction until at least 2036.

Aquafornia news E&E News by Politico

Calif. lawmaker says he’s ‘confident’ he can kill Newsom’s water tunnel plan

Sen. Jerry McNerney is laying down the gauntlet against Gov. Gavin Newsom’s budget proposal to fast-track a controversial Delta water tunnel. What happened: McNerney said he has the votes to defeat Newsom’s bid last week to speed up the permitting for a tunnel underneath the state’s main water delivery hub, the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, if it came to that. “I’m confident that we do,” the former House Democrat said in an interview following a press conference on the issue. A version of the proposed project has been floating around — first as a canal, then a pair of tunnels — for more than a half-century, during which it has reliably brought out opposition from environmental groups and elected officials in the Delta region concerned about habitat loss and construction impacts.

Other Delta tunnel 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.