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.
The Water Education Foundation’s
2025 Annual
Reportis now available in an interactive,
digital format and recaps how we accomplished a lot of
“firsts” last year.
A standout moment was our first-ever Klamath River
Tour, where we brought 45 participants into the heart of
the watershed that underwent the nation’s largest dam removal
project.
Big Day of Giving may be ending soon but
you have until midnight to support the Water Education
Foundation’s tours, workshops, publications and other programs
aimed at building water literacy across California and the West!
Donate
now to help us reach our $10,000
fundraising goal by midnight - we are only
$4,120 away!
At the Foundation, we believe that education is as precious as
water. Your donations help us empower next-generation
leaders from all sectors of the water world to broaden their
knowledge and build their collaborative skills through our
popular Water Leader programs in
California and the Colorado River Basin.
The high-stakes brawl over the drought-stricken
Colorado River comes to Capitol Hill this week. The
Trump administration’s top Western water official is
set to appear before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources
Committee on Wednesday as the Interior Department is
preparing to wrest control of the waterway later this summer.
The department already invoked emergency authorities in April
when it became clear that the river would see the lowest flows
on record this summer, threatening the ability to produce
hydropower and release water out of one of the country’s
largest reservoirs, Lake Powell. … Scott Cameron,
Interior’s acting Bureau of Reclamation commissioner, last week
said the department plans to release a draft plan for operating
the waterway unilaterally in the “mid-to-late summer.”
The construction, though not the long-term operation, of a
proposed 45-mile extension to the State Water Project, backed
by Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, has received permission from
two key federal wildlife agencies. On Friday, the California
Department of Water Resources received permits known as
biological opinions from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and
the National Marine Fisheries Service concluding that
construction can proceed under conditions designed to protect
endangered species and sensitive habitat. … The
opinion of the Fish and Wildlife Service orders builders to
take measures to avoid harming endangered or threatened
species.
An Assembly Bill sponsored by the Karuk Tribe, which seeks to
expand consultation between state water agencies and tribes
during water policy decisions, passed through the California
Assembly last week. … If signed into law, Assembly Bill 2218
would declare, as statewide policy, recognition of “the
inequities regarding access to, and control over, water caused
by state-sanctioned acts of termination, removal, and
assimilation inflicted upon all California Native American
tribes.” … A key provision of the bill is
requiring consultation with tribes when certain water policies
are revisited by state agencies. The State Water
Board, when investigating the basis of a water right, would
need to consult with a California Native American tribe whose
ancestral territory includes the water body, when requested.
A Kings County Judge may decide [this] week whether to
allow a lawsuit by the Kings County Farm Bureau to move to the
next phase in its quest to prove the State Water Resources
Control Board overstepped its authority when it placed
the region on probation in 2024 for lacking an adequate
groundwater plan. The Farm Bureau is also
disputing what it says was an improper blanket denial by the
Water Board of exemptions for some local agencies from those
probationary measures, which require farmers to meter and
register wells at $300 each, report extractions and pay the
state $20 per acre foot pumped. At a June 3 hearing, Kings
County Superior Court Judge Robert Burns said he may rule by
June 11 on whether to start the discovery process, where both
sides seek documents. If he does not issue a ruling, the
parties will meet July 2 to determine next steps.
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.
