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.
Our popular Layperson’s Guide
to the Colorado River has just been updated to reflect the
latest developments along America’s most contested and
meticulously managed river, including efforts to reach agreement
on a critical drought contingency plan, an assessment of certain
tribal water rights and a new binational water agreement with
Mexico.
The Colorado River provides water to more than 35 million people
and 4 million acres of farmland in a region encompassing some
246,000 square miles in the southwestern United States and
Mexico.
The State Water Resources Control Board’s recently approved plan
to increase flows through the San Joaquin River and its
tributaries to help improve conditions for fish in the Bay-Delta
estuary sparked passionate arguments over who holds the rights to
California’s waters — and whose rights are senior to
others.
So what’s the difference between a senior water right and a
junior water right? Or a riparian right and an appropriative
right? How are they determined? And how does the concept of
public trust come into play?
The Salton Sea, California’s largest
inland body of water and an important stop on the Pacific Flyway,
is struggling ecologically and shrinking as water is transferred
from surrounding desert farms to urban San Diego County.
On our Lower
Colorado River Tour, Feb. 27-March 1, we will visit this
fragile ecosystem that harbors 400 bird species and hear from
several stakeholders working to address challenges facing the
sea, including managers of the Imperial Irrigation District, the
Salton Sea Authority and California’s appointed “Sea Czar,”
assistant secretary on Salton Sea policy Bruce Wilcox.
The whims of political fate decided
in 2018 that state bond money would not be forthcoming to help
repair the subsidence-damaged parts of Friant-Kern Canal, the
152-mile conduit that conveys water from the San Joaquin River to
farms that fuel a multibillion-dollar agricultural economy along
the east side of the fertile San Joaquin Valley.
Learn from top experts at our
annual Water
101 Workshop about the history, hydrology and law
behind California water as well as hot topics such as water
flows, the Delta, disadvantaged communities and the Sustainable
Groundwater Management Act. For the first time, the workshop
offers an optional groundwater tour the next day.
One of our most popular events,
Water
101 offers a once-a-year opportunity for anyone new to
California water issues or newly elected to a water district
board – and anyone who wants a refresher — to gain a
deeper understanding of the state’s most precious natural
resource.
Water 101, to be held Feb. 7 at McGeorge School of Law in
Sacramento, details the history, geography, legal and political
facets of water in California, as well as hot topics currently
facing the state. The workshop is taught by some of California’s
leading policy and legal experts, and for the first time will
include an optional daylong tour examining one of the
state’s most critical resources, groundwater.
You can now register for our full
slate of water tours for 2019, including a new tour along
California’s Central
Coast to view a river’s restoration following a major dam
removal, check out efforts to desalt ocean water, recycle
wastewater and manage groundwater and seawater intrusion. We’ll
also take a new route for our Headwaters Tour to check out a
pilot project for thinning the forest in the Yuba River
watershed.
The growing leadership of women in water. The Colorado River’s persistent drought and efforts to sign off on a plan to avert worse shortfalls of water from the river. And in California’s Central Valley, promising solutions to vexing water resource challenges.
These were among the topics that Western Water news explored in 2018.
We’re already planning a full slate of stories for 2019. You can sign up here to be alerted when new stories are published. In the meantime, take a look at what we dove into in 2018:
As stakeholders labor to nail down
effective and durable drought contingency plans for the Colorado
River Basin, they face a stark reality: Scientific research is
increasingly pointing to even drier, more challenging times
ahead.
The latest sobering assessment landed the day after Thanksgiving,
when U.S. Global Change Research Program’s Fourth National Climate
Assessment concluded that Earth’s climate is changing rapidly
compared to the pace of natural variations that have occurred
throughout its history, with greenhouse gas emissions largely the
cause.
Register now for one of our most
popular events – Water
101, which for the first time will include an optional
daylong tour examining one of California’s most critical
resources, groundwater.
Water 101, to be held Feb. 7 at McGeorge School of Law in
Sacramento, details the history, geography, legal and
political facets of water in California as well as hot topics
currently facing the state. Taught by some of California’s
leading policy and legal experts, the workshop
gives attendees a deeper understanding of the state’s most
precious natural resource.
Hear firsthand about recent efforts
to reach agreement on a drought contingency plan and see the
bathtub ring around Lake Mead, now only 38 percent full after 19
years of drought, during our Lower Colorado River
Tour Feb. 27 – March 1.
As the tour weaves along the Colorado River, participants will
see and learn about the important role water from the river plays
in the three Lower Basin states of Nevada, Arizona and
California, and how it helps to sustain their cities, farms and
wildlife areas.
Don’t miss this last chance to score
a sweet holiday deal for anyone interested in water in
California and the Southwest: The paperback “Water & the
Shaping of California,” a treasure trove of gorgeous
color photos, historic maps, water literature and famous sayings
about water for just $17.50 — a 50%
discount.
That is just one of the special holiday deals from the
Foundation. We’re also offering a 20% discount
on our popular water maps, guides, teacher resources and more,
and $15 off copies of “Water More or
Less.”
Our popular Water
101 Workshop is a once-a-year opportunity to get a solid
grounding on the history, legal and regulatory facets
of California’s most precious natural resource.
Our Feb. 7 workshop in Sacramento will feature a special
focus on groundwater, which
provides roughly 40 percent of the state’s water supply in an
average year and much more during drought years when creeks,
rivers and reservoirs are strapped.
The 1992 election to the United
States Senate was famously coined the “Year of the Woman” for the
record number of women elected to the upper chamber.
In the water world, 2018 has been a similar banner year, with
noteworthy appointments of women to top leadership posts in
California — Karla Nemeth at the California Department of Water
Resources and Gloria Gray at the Metropolitan Water District of
Southern California.
Here’s a sweet deal for the
holidays: Get 50 percent off the paperback Water & the
Shaping of California, a treasure trove of gorgeous
color photos, water literature and famous sayings about water.
This beautifully designed oversize book discusses the engineering
feats, political decisions and popular opinion that reshaped the
nature – flood and drought – and society – gold, grain and
growth – that led to the water projects that created the
California we know today. The book Includes a foreword by the
late Kevin Starr, the Golden State’s premier historian.
This book normally retails for $35, but you can get it for a
limited time for just $17.50. Use the discount code
HOLIDAYBOOK at checkout to get your 50 percent
discount. It’s the perfect gift for anyone interested in water in
California.
In the universe of California water, Tim Quinn is a professor emeritus. Quinn has seen — and been a key player in — a lot of major California water issues since he began his water career 40 years ago as a young economist with the Rand Corporation, then later as deputy general manager with the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, and finally as executive director of the Association of California Water Agencies. In December, the 66-year-old will retire from ACWA.
Our slate of water tours for 2019
will include a new tour along the Central Coast to view a river
where a dam was removed, check out efforts to desalt ocean water,
recycle wastewater and manage groundwater and seawater intrusion.
We’ll also take a new route for our Headwaters Tour to check out
a pilot project for thinning the forest in the Yuba River
Watershed.
As the Colorado River Basin becomes
drier and shortage conditions loom, one great variable remains:
How much of the river’s water belongs to Native American tribes?
Native Americans already use water from the Colorado River and
its tributaries for a variety of purposes, including leasing it
to non-Indian users. But some tribes aren’t using their full
federal Indian reserved water right and others have water rights
claims that have yet to be resolved. Combined, tribes have rights
to more water than some states in the Colorado River Basin.
Registration is now open for one of
our most popular events – Water
101, which for the first time will include an optional
daylong tour examining one of California’s most critical
resources, groundwater.
Water 101, to be held Feb. 7 at McGeorge School of Law in
Sacramento, details the history, geography, legal and
political facets of water in California as well as hot topics
currently facing the state. Taught by some of California’s
leading policy and legal experts, the workshop
gives attendees a deeper understanding of the state’s most
precious natural resource.
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.
