Facing the challenges of sustainably managing and sharing water,
our most precious natural resource, requires collaboration,
education and outreach. Since 1977, the Water Education
Foundation has put water resource issues in California and the
West in context to inspire a deep understanding of and
appreciation for water.
Taking a steady pulse of the water world, the Foundation offers
educational materials, tours of key watersheds, water news, water
leadership training and conferences that bring together diverse
voices. By providing tools and platforms for engagement with wide
audiences, we aim to help build sound and collective solutions to
water issues.
What We Do
We support and execute a wide variety of programming to build a
better understanding of water resources across the West,
including:
Mission: The mission of the Water Education
Foundation, an impartial nonprofit, is to inspire understanding
of water and catalyze critical conversations to build bridges and
inform collaborative decision-making
Vision: A society that has the ability to
resolve its water challenges to benefit all
Where We Work
Our office is located in Sacramento, CA.
Connect with Us!
Sign up here to get email announcements
about upcoming workshops, tours and new publications.
You can learn more about the daily comings and goings of the
Foundation by following @WaterEdFdn on Twitter,
liking us on Facebook or
following us on
LinkedIn.
Be sure to reserve your spot for our popular fall programs before
your summer adventures begin. The tours, in particular, have
limited seating and may be sold out before you return!
Klamath River Tour | September 8-12
Join us on this special journey as
we examine water issues along the 263-mile Klamath River, from
its spring-fed headwaters in south-central Oregon to its
redwood-lined estuary on the Pacific Ocean in California. Among
the planned stops is the former site of Iron Gate Dam & Reservoir
for a firsthand look at restoration efforts following the
obsolete structure’s removal. Click here for more
details.
As we head into summer, be sure to
mark your calendars for our popular fall programs which will all
be opening for registration soon!
Importantly, we will launch our first-ever Klamath River Tour to
visit the watershed and, among other things, see how the
river has responded to the dismantling of four obsolete dams. It
will not be an annual tour, so don’t miss this opportunity!
Check out the event dates and registration
details:
Big Day of
Giving is ending soon but you still have until
midnight to support the Water Education Foundation’s tours,
workshops, publications and other programs with a donation to help us reach our
$10,000 fundraising goal - we are only $2,502
away!
At the Foundation, we believe that education is as precious
as water. Your donations help us every day to teach K-12
educators how to bring water science into the classroom and to
empower future decision-makers through our professional
development programs.
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, and the importance
of headwaters 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!
There is no need to wait to show
your love for the Water Education Foundation! You can donate
early to our Big Day of Giving campaign and help us reach
our fundraising goal of $10,000 by May 1.
Big Day of Giving is a 24-hour online fundraising marathon
for nonprofits. Donations will benefit our programs and
publications across California and the West.
Before the construction of Hoover Dam on the lower Colorado River, as well as a slew of smaller sisters downstream, the stretch downriver served as a biological oasis in the middle of the unrelenting Mojave and Sonoran deserts. The marshes and backwaters along the river’s edge provided sheltered areas for fish to spawn and rear their young, and mesquite and cottonwood-willow forests provided important habitat for numerous species of birds and other animals.
NEARLY SOLD OUT!
Our Central
Valley Tour travels the length of the San Joaquin
Valley where water supply and use have been in the national
headlines, including our first stop at San Luis
Reservoir near Los Banos. The fifth-largest
reservoir in the state has been in the news recently because
plans to raise its dam are moving forward,
which would create 130,000 acre-feet of additional water for
off-stream storage used by both the federal Central Valley
Project and California’s State Water Project.
Time is running out to register for next week’s Water
101 Workshop and go beyond recent national headlines
to gain a deeper understanding of how water is managed and moved
across California. Plus, only a handful of spots remain for the
opportunity to extend your ‘beyond the headlines’ water education
experience on our Central Valley
Tour! And come one, come all to our annual Open
House & Reception on May 1.
Go beyond the stream of recent
national headlines and gain a deeper understanding of how water
is managed and moved across California during our Water
101 Workshop on April 10.
One of our most popular events, the daylong workshop at
McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento offers anyone new to
California water issues or newly elected to a water district
board — and really anyone who wants a refresher — a chance to
gain a solid statewide grounding on the state’s water
resources.
Some of state’s leading policy and legal experts are on the
agenda for the workshop that details
the historical, legal and political facets of water management in
the state.
Alfred E. Smith II, a Southern
California water law attorney and an alumnus of the Water
Education Foundation’s Water Leaders program, has been elected
president of the Foundation’s board of directors.
As chair of Nossaman LLP’s Water Group and a partner in the
firm’s Los Angeles office, Smith
serves as general counsel to several Southern California water
districts and represents clients on water rights, groundwater
adjudications, water contamination litigation and remediation
matters.
The workshop, April 10 in Sacramento, is among the events, tours and publications the Water Education Foundation offers to help you get beyond the stream of recent national headlines and better understand how water is managed and moved across the Golden State:
Go beyond the recent headlines and gain a deeper understanding of how water flows across California during our Water 101 Workshop on April 10. If you join our Central Valley Tour happening April 23-25, you can stand atop Terminus Dam where the federal government released water from Lake Kaweah in late January.
The Water Education Foundation, which celebrated its 48th birthday this week, is proud to be the only organization in California providing comprehensive, unbiased information about the most critical resource across the West. We provide myriad resources to help put issues in context and to inspire a deep understanding of and appreciation for water, including educational materials, tours of key watersheds, water news, water leadership training and events that bring together diverse voices.
A new aquatic invader, the golden mussel, has penetrated California’s ecologically fragile Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, the West Coast’s largest tidal estuary and the hub of the state’s vast water export system. While state officials say they’re working to keep this latest invasive species in check, they concede it may be a nearly impossible task: The golden mussel is in the Golden State to stay – and it is likely to spread.
Register today for the return
of our Bay-Delta
Tour May 7-9 as we venture into the most critical
and controversial water region in California. Get a firsthand
look at the state’s vital water hub and hear directly from
experts on key issues affecting the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta
and San Francisco Bay.
The 720,000-acre network of islands and channels supports
the state’s two large water systems – the State Water Project and
the federal Central Valley Project – and together with the San
Francisco Bay is an important ecological resource. You’ll learn
firsthand how the drought is affecting water quality and supply
that serves local farms, cities and habitat. Much of
the water also heads south via canals and aqueducts to provide
drinking water for more than 27 million Californians and
irrigation to about 3 million acres of farmland that helps feed
the nation.
Gain a deeper understanding of
water in California by attending our annual Water 101
Workshop in April as experts go over the
history, hydrology and law behind the state’s most precious
natural resource.
But you don’t have to wait until the workshop at McGeorge
School of Law in Sacramento to get up to speed on important water
issues.
Updated and redesigned, the 21-page overview comes as cities in
California and Arizona significantly expand and upgrade their
wastewater recycling facilities as a strategic defense against
extended droughts and climate change.
Registration is now open for our next slate of spring programs,
part of a year packed with engaging tours, workshops and
conferences on key water topics in California and across the
West.
Seating is always limited for our events and tickets for our
first water tour of 2025 – along the Lower Colorado
River in March – have been going fast!
Current Foundation member organizations receive access to
coveted sponsorship opportunities for our tours
and events, all of which are prime networking
opportunities for the water professionals in attendance! Contact
Nick Gray for more information.
Happy New Year to all the friends, supporters, readers and participants of the tours, articles and workshops we featured in 2024! We’re grateful to each and every person who engaged with us last year.
As we turn the page to 2025, one of our most exciting projects will be a first-ever Klamath River Basin Tour in September. We’ll visit some of the sites where four dams came down along the river’s mainstem, and talk to tribes and farmers in the region and learn from scientists watching the river’s restoration unfold.
While most of our tours span three days, this one will likely stretch to four or possibly five days to accommodate the time to get to this remote watershed straddling the California/Oregon border. Stay tuned for more details!
Our array of 2025 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.
In March, we return to the Southwest’s most important river with our Lower Colorado River Tour, and the bus is quickly filling up! We then journey across the San Joaquin Valley on our Central Valley Tour in April and take a deep dive into California’s water hub in May with our signature Bay-Delta Tour.
In case you missed it, registration for our first water tour of
2025 along the Colorado River opened last week and the bus is
filling up quickly! Seating is limited, so reserve your spot soon
while tickets last.
Lower Colorado River Tour: March 12-14
Don’t miss the return of our annual
Lower
Colorado River Tour as we take you from Hoover
Dam to the U.S.-Mexico border and through the Imperial and
Coachella valleys to learn about the challenges and opportunities
facing the “Lifeline of the Southwest.” Experts discuss river
issues such as water needs, drought management, endangered
species and habitat restoration. Get more tour
details and register here!
The Water Education Foundation’s tours offer participants a
first-hand look at the water facilities, rivers and regions
critical in the debate about the future of water resources.
From recent news articles to publications, maps and tours, Water
Education Foundation has everything you need, including the
award-winning Layperson’s Guide to the Delta.
