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.
Calling all future water leaders! Are you an emerging leader
passionate about shaping the future of water in California
or across the Colorado River Basin?
The Water Education Foundation will
be hosting two dynamic water leadership programs in 2026 – one
focused on California water
issues and the other on the Colorado River
Basin. These competitive programs are designed for
rising stars from diverse sectors who are ready to deepen their
water knowledge, strengthen their leadership skills and
collaborate on real-world water challenges.
Are you an
up-and-coming leader in the water world? The application
window is now open for our 2026 California Water
Leaders cohort, and submissions are due no later than Dec.
3, 2025.
If interested in applying, start by checking out the
program
requirementsand look at the
frequently asked questions and mandatory
dates on
the application page. Make sure you have the time to
commit to the program next year and approval from your
organization to apply.
Then sign
up here to join a virtual Q&A
session on Nov. 5 at noon with Jenn Bowles,
our executive director, and other Foundation team members to get
an overview of the program and advice on applying.
A powerful atmospheric river weather system has mostly moved
through California but not before causing at least six deaths
and dousing much of the state. Early Monday lingering
thunderstorms pose the risk of mudslides in areas of Los
Angeles county that were recently ravaged by wildfire.
… More than 4in of rain fell over coastal Santa Barbara
county as the storm approached Los Angeles. Parts of the Sierra
Nevada received more than a foot of snow. The weather service
said scattered rain could continue through Tuesday in the
southern part of the state. Another storm was expected to
arrive on Thursday.
Dry, dry, dry. And warm, warm, warm. That’s been the weather
story across Colorado so far this November. Colorado’s mountain
snowpack is off to a slow start this season, and the Denver
metro area still hasn’t seen flurries. Snowpack levels across
the state remain far below average, though meteorologists say
weather patterns are expected to shift in the coming days,
bringing a better chance for winter storms before the end of
the month. … According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, much of
the state is unusually dry, while patches of Pitkin and Eagle
counties have slipped into extreme drought.
Other snowpack and water supply news around the West:
At least two thirds of California’s population and more than 4
million acres of California farmland rely on water delivered by
the federal Central Valley Project and the State Water Project,
two of the largest multipurpose water management projects in
the world. A report released this week by the National
Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine reviews these
projects’ monitoring, modeling, and other scientific activities
— specifically actions designed to help protect endangered
fish. … This first report examines three actions
designed to help protect fish and offers recommendations to
strengthen those actions.
Three months ago, Santa Clara County’s largest water agency
voted to kill a $3.2 billion plan to build a huge new reservoir
in the southern part of the county near Pacheco Pass. The
Pacheco Reservoir would have been the largest new reservoir
built in the Bay Area since 1998 when Los Vaqueros Reservoir
was constructed in eastern Contra Costa County. … This week,
the district, a government agency in San Jose that provides
water to 2 million South Bay residents, approved a roadmap for
the next 25 years that combines new reservoir projects,
groundwater storage and recycled water. The price tag: $3.9
billion.
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.
