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.
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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.
Big
Day of Giving is nearly over 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
$15,000 fundraising goal - we are only
$6,405 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.
Our portfolio of programs reach many people and in many
different ways:
Today is Big Day of Giving! Your donation will help
the Water Education Foundation continue its work to enhance
public understanding of our most precious natural resource
in in California and across the West – water.
Big Day of Giving is a 24-hour regional fundraising event that
has profound benefits for our educational programs and
publications on drought, floods, groundwater, and the importance
of headwaters in California and the Colorado River Basin.
Your tax-deductible donation of
any size helps support our tours, scholarships, teacher training
workshops, free access to our daily water newsfeed and more. You
have until midnight to help us reach our $15,000
fundraising goal!
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation will examine the possibility of
drilling tunnels through Glen Canyon Dam to ensure water can
pass through it at low Lake Powell elevations, two
knowledgeable sources told the Arizona Daily Star. Such a
re-engineering project will be among several options the bureau
will look at due to new concerns about the ability to deliver
Colorado River water through the 61-year-old facility under
such circumstances. It could prevent a catastrophic occurrence
if lake elevations ever fall so low that no water could get
through the dam to serve farms and Lower River Basin cities,
including Tucson, Phoenix, Las Vegas, Los Angeles and San
Diego.
Diminished by decades of over-pumping, California’s groundwater
reserves saw a huge influx of water last year, in some places
the most in modern times, according to state data that offers
the first detailed look at how aquifers fared during
the state’s historically wet 2023. The bump was driven, in
part, by deliberate efforts to recharge aquifers — the
porous underground rock that holds water and accounts for about
40% of the state’s total water supply. The intentional water
banking, or managed recharge, resulted in at least 4.1 million
acre-feet of water pushed underground, nearly equivalent to
what California’s largest reservoir, Shasta Lake, can hold.
About 90% of that recharge occurred in the San Joaquin Valley,
the state’s agricultural heartland, where aquifers have been
heavily taxed by pumping.
UC Berkeley’s Central Sierra Snow Lab says it has a reason to
celebrate after a weekend storm brought the most snow to date,
topping off a late-season surge. After storms in late February
and throughout March, readings at the lab surged from 102% of
normal for March 1 to 110% of normal for April
1. Accordingly, lab observers seemed excited by
the prospect of precipitation that forecasters
said could bring between 9 to 18 inches of new snow
Saturday through Sunday.
Last year, California experienced weather whiplash. After years
of severe drought, 2023 saw heavy rainfall and snowpack that
flooded the state, recharged groundwater and filled our
reservoirs. While desperately needed, we cannot pretend that
the good times are here to stay. Increasingly dry years are in
our future, and it will not be long until we find ourselves
facing drought conditions once again. The time to prepare our
water infrastructure for the future is now. Currently,
lawmakers in Sacramento are working to close a $37.9 billion
deficit. While we have made progress at the state level in
recent years — including allocating $8.6 billion in state
funding for water projects — pulling back on water
infrastructure funding now could jeopardize further federal and
local funding sources for key projects already underway. -Written by Senator Anna M. Caballero and Ric Ortega,
general manager of the Grassland Water
District.
As the date of reckoning for excessive groundwater pumping in
Tulare County grows closer, lobbying by water managers and
growers has ramped up. The Friant Water Authority, desperate to
protect its newly rebuilt – yet still sinking –
Friant-Kern Canal, has beseeched the Water Resources Control
Board to get involved. Specifically, it has asked board members
to look into how the Eastern Tule Groundwater Sustainability
Agency (GSA) has, or has not, curbed over pumping that affects
the canal. Meanwhile, the Eastern Tule groundwater agency has
been doing a bit of its own lobbying. It recently hosted all
five members of the Water Board on three separate tours of the
region, including the canal. Because the tours were staggered,
there wasn’t a quorum of board members, which meant they
weren’t automatically open to the public.
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.
