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.
Go beyond the headlines and gain a
deeper understanding of how water is managed and moved across
California during our annual Water
101 Workshop on March 26.
One of our most popular events, the daylong workshop at Cal
State Sacramento’s Harper Alumni Center offers anyone new to
California water issues or newly elected to a water district
board — and anyone who wants a refresher — a chance to gain a
solid statewide grounding on water resources. Leading
experts are on the agenda for the workshop that details
the historical, legal and political facets of water management in
the state.
Happy New Year to all the friends, supporters, readers of articles and participants of the tours and workshops we featured in 2025! We are deeply grateful to each and every person who engaged with us last year.
We have much to look forward to in 2026, especially as we gear up to mark and celebrate the Foundation’s 50th anniversary in 2027!
One of our most exciting projects this year will be replacing our 12-year-old website with a beautifully streamlined version that is mobile-adaptable. It will allow fora more intuitive experience as users conduct research, read our weekday newsfeed or water encyclopedia, and sign up for tours and events.
Along with our new website, we’ll be launching a new and improved Aquafornia newsfeed to better align with our reach across California and the Colorado River Basin. Stay tuned!
New Water Map & Spanish Version of California Water Guide
By summer, we’ll publish an update to our Layperson’s Guide to California Water in English and, for the first time, in Spanish. We will also publish a new Klamath River map to illustrate the nation’s largest dam removal project in the watershed straddling Oregon and California.
With social media, we’ll continue focusing on LinkedIn as our primary go-to channel as we ease off Facebook and X/Twitter where engagement has dropped. But not to fear; we’ll continue posting on Instagram.
Our array of 2026 programming begins later this month when we welcome our incoming California Water Leaders cohort. We’ll be sure to introduce them to you and let you know what thorny California water policy issue they’ll be tackling.
We’ll also be welcoming our third cohort of Colorado River Water Leaders in March.Applications are due Jan. 26 so be sure to get them in soon!
California regulators are moving toward a long-awaited decision
on how much water can be taken from the Sacramento–San Joaquin
Delta — a choice that could reshape supplies for cities, farms,
and fragile ecosystems statewide. The Bay-Delta Plan, now
nearing final approval, would require more freshwater to remain
in rivers and estuaries, limiting how much can be pumped south
during much of the year. Recent public hearings underscored how
consequential the plan is: conservation groups say the Delta’s
ecological collapse demands urgent action; agricultural
districts and urban water agencies warn it could reshape supply
chains, decimate the ag industry, and raise household water
bills.
… The physical infrastructure that enables Colorado River
water management is on the verge of its own real and
potentially catastrophic crisis — and yet Reclamation has
barely acknowledged this, with the exception of an oblique
reference in an unposted technical memorandum from
2024. The falling reservoir levels reveal another, deeper set
of problems inside Glen Canyon Dam, which holds back the
Colorado and Lake Powell. The 710-foot-tall dam was designed
for a Goldilocks world in which water levels would never be too
high or too low, despite the well-known fact that the Colorado
is by far the most variable river in North America. …
Insufficient or no flows through Glen Canyon Dam would be a
disaster of unprecedented magnitude, affecting vast population
centers and some of the biggest economies in the world, not to
mention ecosystems that depend on the river all the way to the
Gulf of California in Mexico. –Written by Los Angeles-based historian Wade Graham.
The Trump administration on Thursday will revoke a scientific
finding that long has been the central basis for U.S. action to
regulate greenhouse gas emissions and fight climate change, the
White House announced. The Environmental Protection
Agency will issue a final rule rescinding a 2009
government declaration known as the endangerment finding. That
Obama-era policy determined that carbon dioxide and other
greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare. … It is
used to justify regulations, such as auto emissions standards,
intended to protect against threats made increasingly severe by
climate change — deadly floods, extreme heat waves,
catastrophic wildfires and other natural disasters in
the United States and around the world.
The Central Valley is bracing for rainy weather and even snow
this week, though it’s expected to be just a taste of what the
rest of the state can expect to see starting this weekend.
Brian Ochs, a meteorologist based at the National Weather
Service office in Hanford, said the Central Valley will see
light showers Tuesday and Wednesday. … There will be
snow mainly at the highest peaks of the
Sierras. Places with elevations above 7,000 feet can
expect one to two feet of snowfall, Ochs said. Parts of Sequoia
National Park and the southern Sierras may see up to a foot and
a half of snow. … Additional rain is expected Sunday to
Tuesday, bringing with it a chance of heavy snowfall in
the Sierras. Next week’s storm system will impact the
Central Valley and coastline, though Ochs said Southern
California can expect to get the heaviest rains.
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.
