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.
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.
Today is Big Day of Giving! Your donation will help
the Water Education Foundation continue its work to enhance
public understanding of our most precious natural resource
in California and across the West – water.
Big Day of Giving is a 24-hour regional fundraising event that
has profound benefits for our educational programs and
publications on drought, floods, groundwater, snowpack, rivers
and reservoirs in California and the Colorado River Basin.
Your tax-deductible donation of
any size helps support our tours, scholarships, teacher training
workshops, free access to our daily water newsfeed and more. You
have until midnight to help us reach our $10,000
fundraising goal!
… After more than a year of deadlock in talks between the
seven states that share its water, the Lower Basin states of
Arizona, California and Nevada have proposed major cutbacks to
their take on the [Colorado] river. Those cuts, along with
other tweaks to the management of major reservoirs across the
West, would last through 2028, buying time for states to get
back to the negotiating table and work on a longer-term plan.
The plan is not formal yet, and would need sign-off from the
federal government before going into effect. … So what are
the details of the proposal, and what happens next? KJZZ spoke
with experts around the region to break it down.
Recognizing “very dry conditions,” the state’s [Wyo.] water
boss Tuesday declared an emergency to allow ranchers to more
easily get water to their stock. State Engineer Brandon Gebhart
gave local water supervisors the authority to move what’s known
as the “point of use” of water that sustains livestock. Four
district supervisors can now authorize the shift in water use
with a simple form instead of requiring more burdensome changes
to permits at state offices in Cheyenne. The emergency
authorization came as the state faces a dire summer, Gebhart
told legislators and members of the Water Development
Commission on Wednesday.
For the first time, golden mussels, an invasive species of
tiny mollusks that can rapidly reproduce and cause
millions of dollars in damage to pipes, drinking water plants,
irrigation systems and dams — sparking growing
concerns across California — have been found in Santa Clara
County. Last month, a juvenile golden mussel was discovered in
the raw water intake area at the Penitencia Water Treatment
plant near Alum Rock Park in San Jose. A few weeks later, in
late April, an adult was found in a raw water strainer at the
Santa Teresa Water Treatment Plant in San Jose’s Almaden area.
… [T]he discovery of the diminutive invaders has alarmed
local officials, who say they must now install equipment
costing hundreds of thousands of dollars at some district
facilities to remove them.
Assurances that a “highly efficient hybrid cooling system” will
keep a proposed AI data center from sucking up all the water in
the already overdrafted Indian Wells Valley fell flat with
residents who’ve bombarded the state with negative comments on
the proposal. The proposed RB Inyokern Data Center being
championed by R&L Capital, Inc. would only use up
to 50 acre feet a year to keep its whirring data halls
cool, according to an application filed with the
California Energy Commission in late April. A “will serve
letter” issued to R&L Capital, Inc. by the Inyokern
Community Services District commits to providing about that
same amount. But desert residents aren’t buying it.
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.
