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.
We are gearing up for an engaging Water Summit on Oct. 29 and
also prepping our 2027 California Water Leaders program. Join a
virtual Q&A on our Water Leaders program on Nov. 10. Details
below.
Water Summit | October 29
Our 42ⁿᵈ
annual Water Summit is the Foundation’s
premier event of the year and returns to Sacramento October 29
with leading policymakers and experts addressing critical water
issues in California and across the West. Capacity is
limited and filling up quickly, so register here while
seats are available!
Conversations during the Summit will revolve around this year’s
theme, Stewarding a New Era in Western
Water, with a focus on emerging topics related to
the challenges and opportunities facing water resource
management.
The mandate to identify 9 million acre-feet of
additional water supply in California by 2040
The need for clarity in the ongoing AI/data center
discourse related to water resources management
The latest developments in desalination
efforts and their implications for the arid West
Our 42ⁿᵈ annual Water
Summit, an engaging day of discussions addressing
critical water issues in California and across the West, will be
held on Thursday, Oct. 29, in Sacramento with the theme,
Stewarding a New Era in Western Water.
Speakers and conversations will highlight emerging topics related
to the challenges and opportunities facing management of the
West’s most precious natural resource.
Lively conversations will focus on topics such
as:
The mandate to identify 9 million acre-feet of additional
water supply in California by 2040
The need for clarity in the ongoing AI/data center discourse
related to water resources management
The latest developments in desalination efforts and their
implications for the arid West
A full agenda will be posted soon, and speakers
include:
Joel Metzger | Deputy Director, Statewide
Water Resources Planning, California Department of Water
Resources
Sandi Matsumoto | California Water Program
Director, The Nature Conservancy
Cannon Michael | President, Bowles
Farming
Craig Miller | General Manager, Western
Municipal Water District
Dave Pederson | General Manager, Las Virgenes
Municipal Water District
As previously announced,
the day will open with a keynote address from Tom
Gibson, the new director of California’s Department of
Water Resources. An attorney who has held several roles in
the state’s Natural Resources Agency and its various departments,
Gibson was appointed by Gov. Newsom on June 29 and sworn in on
July 6 to lead DWR and its nearly 4,000 employees.
The city of Peoria has signed a $100 million agreement to buy
water from a private company, as Arizona faces cuts to its
supply from the Colorado River. Peoria says it will receive
about 173,672 acre feet of water in storage credits to help
shore up the city’s supply. That’s roughly enough to
provide half a million homes with water for a year.
The city says it bought a 120 acre campus that includes two
wells from Vidler Water Company in the Harquahala irrigation
area in La Paz County. When all permitting is finished,
Peoria plans to pump groundwater into the Central Arizona
Project canal, and eventually into a treatment facility for the
city’s use.
Rep. Andy Biggs on Wednesday introduced a sweeping water bill
that would pour $19 billion in federal funding into new
infrastructure while cutting permit requirements across the
drought-stricken Colorado River Basin. … His bill would
remove environmental review requirements that
can hold up water projects for years, require the federal
government to make permitting decisions within six months and
pay two-thirds of the cost of new water projects. The bill
would also reopen a shuttered desalination plant near
Yuma, partner with Mexico to desalinate
seawater and study how to capture California
stormwater before it drains into the Pacific Ocean.
A predicted “super” El Niño this winter could put one of Gov.
Gavin Newsom’s plans to bolster the state’s water
supplies to the test just as his governorship winds
down. The storms could bring danger, potentially overwhelming
levees and causing damaging floods. But they could also give
California, where water supplies can swing wildly from drought
to flood, a chance to capture and store excess water
underground for later use. … Newsom has tried for
the past couple of years to make it easier for water managers
to divert floodwaters into underground
aquifers as part of his broader efforts to store and
send more water to farms and cities, sometimes angering
environmentalists who argue it comes at the cost of endangered
species.
Jon Kyl, a giant in Arizona politics who served the state in
Congress for nearly three decades, has died, his family
announced Thursday. He was 84. … Former Republican U.S.
Sen. Kyl announced last year his withdrawal from public life
following a dementia diagnosis. … Kyl leveraged his
expertise on water policy in Congress to gain approval of
tribal water rights settlements, said Sarah Porter of
Arizona State University. He was an “important participant” in
negotiations that created the state’s water
rules, said Porter, director of the university’s
Kyl Center for Water Policy that is named
after the former senator.
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.
No portion of the West has been immune to drought during the last
century and it occurs with much greater frequency in the West
than in any other region of the country.
