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 Water Education Foundation’s
2025 Annual
Reportis now available in an interactive,
digital format and recaps how we accomplished a lot of
“firsts” last year.
A standout moment was our first-ever Klamath Basin River
Tour, where we brought 45 participants into the heart of
the watershed that underwent the nation’s largest dam removal
project.
Big Day of Giving may be ending soon but
you have until midnight to support the Water Education
Foundation’s tours, workshops, publications and other programs
aimed at building water literacy across California and the West!
Donate
now to help us reach our $10,000
fundraising goal by midnight - we are only
$4,120 away!
At the Foundation, we believe that education is as precious as
water. Your donations help us empower next-generation
leaders from all sectors of the water world to broaden their
knowledge and build their collaborative skills through our
popular Water Leader programs in
California and the Colorado River Basin.
Unable to get Colorado River states to hash out a new 20-year
deal to share in worsening water shortages, the U.S. Bureau of
Reclamation has told them it’s now aiming for a 10-year
plan with prescribed cutbacks to be reassessed every two
years. Federal officials informed the seven states of
their new preference late last week, and Arizona’s lead
negotiator made it public on Wednesday, May 13, during a
meeting of a committee representing the cities, tribes and
other water users who meet to develop a unified state position.
The shift to what could effectively become five two-year plans
carries both opportunities and risks for Arizona.
A bipartisan group of lawmakers wants to create a new tax
credit for water recycling projects in a bid to reduce
water use from industrial facilities and artificial
intelligence data centers. Sens. Ben Ray Luján
(D-N.M.) and Katie Britt (R-Ala.) on Wednesday introduced the
“Advancing Water Reuse Act.” The bill would offer companies
a 30 percent investment tax credit for
installing or expanding water recycling systems at
manufacturing sites, including food processing facilities and
data centers. Water recycling or reuse refers to efforts to
treat wastewater so that it can be used again for industry,
irrigation or drinking. The idea is gaining steam across the
nation, especially in the arid West and in
places seeing a resurgence in manufacturing or a growing number
of data center projects.
Seven years ago, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a law to
bring safe and affordable drinking water to the state’s most
disadvantaged communities. Last week, Newsom celebrated
the program’s accomplishments. … But that work could
lose critical funding as the Newsom administration overhauls
its source: California’s carbon market. The changes to
the program’s funding priorities and revenue threaten efforts
to bring clean drinking water to schools, homes and communities
across California. … The cuts began in
September, when Newsom and lawmakers struck a deal to
reauthorize the state’s carbon market after weeks of tense and
chaotic negotiations — renaming it “cap and invest.” The
new laws deprioritized funding lawmakers had promised to safe
drinking water.
From farmers to winemakers, commercial water users pumping from
the Paso Robles Area Groundwater Basin may soon need to pay for
their water use — and this time, they won’t be able to protest
the fees. On Friday, the Paso Robles Area Groundwater Authority
released a draft rate study that proposed charging
$22.90 per acre-foot of groundwater used by water
systems, farmers and commercial pumpers. … Meanwhile,
domestic well owners would not be charged water use fees, the
report said. The city of Paso Robles is the largest water
system that would pay fees, but this wouldn’t impact the city’s
ratepayers, Mayor John Hamon told The Tribune.
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.
