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.
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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.
There is no need to wait to show
your love for the Water Education Foundation! You can donate
early to our Big Day of Giving campaign and help us reach
our fundraising goal of $10,000 by May 7.
Big Day of Giving is a 24-hour online fundraising marathon
for nonprofits. Donations will benefit our programs and
publications centering on the most precious natural
resource in California and across the
West.
Mark your calendars now for our upcoming fall 2026
programs! Registration will open soon, so make sure
you’re among the first to hear by signing up for Foundation announcements!
Water Summit | October 29
Don’t miss the Water Education
Foundation’s 42ⁿᵈ annual Water
Summit in downtown Sacramento! Our premier event of
the year features leading policymakers and experts addressing
critical water issues in California and across the West.
Utah’s water landscape doesn’t look good. After an
abysmally low winter for snow, 100% of the state is already in
drought. Plus, negotiations on the future of the
Colorado River are still going nowhere. Gov.
Spencer Cox thinks that grim reality could actually lead to
more cooperation on the future of the Colorado River.
… He’s hopeful that last winter’s record-low snow could
bring the states that share the river together after months of
deadlock and the failure to reach an agreement by a February
deadline. The upstream states of Utah, Colorado and Wyoming
have butted heads for years with Arizona, California and Nevada
over who should cut back their water use as the West has faced
a megadrought for the last quarter century.
… For more than half a century, California’s leaders have
debated rerouting water around, rather than through, the
network of rivers, farmland and marshes of the Sacramento-San
Joaquin Delta. Newsom’s version would pipe Sacramento River
water through a 45-mile bypass to a reservoir on the California
Aqueduct. … [T]he Delta Stewardship Council weighed
opponents’ many challenges to the project and last week voted
six-to-one to require the Department of Water Resources to
address just two of them. … Far bigger obstacles
loom: court rulings that have upended California’s financing
plans, critical water rights decisions still to come from state
regulators, and water agencies that have yet to decide whether
the tunnel’s water will be worth the cost.
For the first time, growers in one of California’s most acutely
water-stressed areas have to reveal how much
groundwater they are pumping. For generations, they’ve been
free to take water from wells on their own land without
reporting to it the state. The State Water Resources Control
Board ordered landowners in parts of the San Joaquin Valley
around Corcoran and Pixley to submit detailed reports by
Friday. The Tule and Tulare Lake groundwater subbasins were put
on probation by the board in 2024 because they weren’t doing
enough to control excessive pumping, which has caused levels to
plummet. By collecting the data, the agency is preparing to
charge landowners fees — $300 for each well plus a usage fee of
$20 for each acre-foot of water.
Governor Gavin Newsom announced the completion of California’s
first solar-covered canal in the Central Valley [Turlock],
launching a first-of-its-kind pilot project aimed at
saving water, generating renewable energy and
reducing maintenance costs. Known as Project Nexus, the $20
million initiative places solar panels directly over irrigation
canals to test whether the approach can help California better
manage water resources while expanding clean energy
production. State officials say the project is designed to
evaluate whether covering canals with solar infrastructure can
reduce water lost to evaporation before it reaches farms, homes
and businesses.
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.
