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.
As your summer adventures wrap up, be sure to reserve your spot
for our popular fall programs. Seating is limited and will fill
up quickly!
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.
Just one year after the signing of Senate Bill 72, the Summit will
feature a panel discussion of California’s 2028 Water
Plan Update as it undergoes a legislatively
mandated shift from being just a guidance document to a blueprint
providing a framework for implementation of actions.
Start making arrangements now to attend our first-ever
Kern River Tour and annual Water
Summit so you don’t miss out. These popular fall
programs have limited seating and will fill up quickly!
Kern River Tour | November 4-6
Join us on this special journey as
we examine water issues along the Kern
River, from its mountain-fed headwaters in the
southern Sierra Nevada to its terminus in the Central Valley west
of Bakersfield. Among the planned stops are both upper forks of
the Kern River, Lake Isabella, lower Kern River canyon, the
Friant-Kern Canal, irrigated agriculture in the valley, the Kern
Water Bank and more. Click here for more
details.
After Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed her data center water
disclosure bill last year, Assemblymember Diane Papan,
D-San Mateo, returned this year with a two-bill package. One of
the bills, AB 2619, was passed by the Legislature Thursday
morning, sending to Newsom a measure that would require
data centers to report their water consumption
annually. The other bill, AB 2469, which would require
information about projected water demand before new
data centers are approved, is still moving through the
Legislature. … Opponents have argued that existing state
law already gives local water agencies the information they
need to plan for new development and that additional reporting
requirements would place unnecessary burdens on the industry.
… This year, El Niño is “becoming so
dominant” that it is “drowning out” another key weather factor,
the Madden-Julian Oscillation, the National Hurricane
Center said. The MJO is an area of thunderstorms
circumnavigating the tropics, and typically central and east
Pacific tropical cyclone activity ebbs and flows every two to
six weeks due to those storms. But in recent months,
record-warm ocean temperatures fueled by El Niño are supporting
the nearly nonstop thunderstorms that provide
the first key ingredient for potential tropical
cyclones. The Pacific “hot spot” will continue through
early September, the center said. … “There is growing
potential for one of these tropical storms or
hurricanes to make a right hook toward California,”
Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at UC Agriculture and Natural
Resources, said.
Nevada’s decision to take the federal government to court over
the Colorado River’s new operating rules could stall
the Navajo Nation’s push to get its Arizona water rights
settlement through Congress before the year ends, a
Navajo Nation water rights attorney said this week. “We’re on
an extremely limited window of time,” said Dwight Witherspoon,
an attorney with the Water Rights Unit of the Navajo Nation
Department of Justice. … The state of Nevada, the Colorado
River Commission of Nevada and the Southern Nevada Water
Authority filed a complaint Monday, Aug. 24, in U.S. District
Court for the District of Nevada against Interior Secretary
Doug Burgum, the Department of the Interior, the Bureau of
Reclamation and Aubrey Bettencourt, the bureau’s principal
deputy commissioner.
The San Diego County Water Authority is expected to generate
$15 million in revenue during the first five years of a
long-term agreement announced Thursday that will allow Burbank,
in Los Angeles County, to purchase water from the
agency. Under the agreement, Burbank will be able to
purchase up to 5,000 acre- feet of water annually through 2047,
according to the Water Authority. The agencies will use
existing infrastructure to share the water, with no new
pipelines required. Water Authority officials said
revenue from the agreement will help offset costs associated
with investments made over the past three decades to improve
San Diego County’s water supply reliability. … The
agreement is the Water Authority’s third regional water
supply partnership announced this year.
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.
