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.
Go beyond the headlines and gain a
deeper understanding of how water is managed and moved across
California during our annual Water
101 Workshop on March 26.
One of our most popular events, the daylong workshop at Cal
State Sacramento’s Harper Alumni Center offers anyone new to
California water issues or newly elected to a water district
board — and anyone who wants a refresher — a chance to gain a
solid statewide grounding on water resources. Leading
experts are on the agenda for the workshop that details
the historical, legal and political facets of water management in
the state.
Happy New Year to all the friends, supporters, readers of articles and participants of the tours and workshops we featured in 2025! We are deeply grateful to each and every person who engaged with us last year.
We have much to look forward to in 2026, especially as we gear up to mark and celebrate the Foundation’s 50th anniversary in 2027!
One of our most exciting projects this year will be replacing our 12-year-old website with a beautifully streamlined version that is mobile-adaptable. It will allow fora more intuitive experience as users conduct research, read our weekday newsfeed or water encyclopedia, and sign up for tours and events.
Along with our new website, we’ll be launching a new and improved Aquafornia newsfeed to better align with our reach across California and the Colorado River Basin. Stay tuned!
New Water Map & Spanish Version of California Water Guide
By summer, we’ll publish an update to our Layperson’s Guide to California Water in English and, for the first time, in Spanish. We will also publish a new Klamath River map to illustrate the nation’s largest dam removal project in the watershed straddling Oregon and California.
With social media, we’ll continue focusing on LinkedIn as our primary go-to channel as we ease off Facebook and X/Twitter where engagement has dropped. But not to fear; we’ll continue posting on Instagram.
Our array of 2026 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.
We’ll also be welcoming our third cohort of Colorado River Water Leaders in March.Applications are due Jan. 26 so be sure to get them in soon!
The prospect of a costly and prolonged interstate lawsuit over
rights to the Colorado River looms now that the states using
the water are blowing past a Valentine’s Day deadline with no
water-sharing deal in hand. The dispute has largely hinged on
whether states in the headwaters region would agree to
mandatory cuts to their overall supply in especially dry years
— a commitment they have so far rejected in part because they
do not use their full allocation as the more developed
Southwest does. … Nevada’s lead negotiator issued a
statement on Feb. 13, a day before the target that most
everyone involved knew they would miss, and decried the
entrenched positions of states unwilling to bend.
The seven Western states that use the Colorado River are on the
hook to come up with a new agreement for sharing water by
Saturday, and it does not appear that they will have a deal by
the deadline. Negotiators from those states have been
deadlocked for the better part of two years. The Colorado River
supplies water to the Phoenix and Tucson areas through the
Central Arizona Project. It also feeds nearly 40 million people
and a massive agricultural industry. The river is in the grips
of a megadrought stretching back more than two decades, and
policymakers have struggled to agree on ways to rein in demand.
After months of talks, they can’t agree on who should feel the
pain of necessary cutbacks.
The California Supreme Court denied a petition by the Kings
County Farm Bureau to review whether the Fifth District Court
of Appeal properly reversed a preliminary injunction against
the state last year. Despite the set back, the Farm Bureau
vowed to continue with its underlying lawsuit. … The
Farm Bureau sued the State Water Resources Control Board in May
2024 after the Water Board placed the Tulare Lake subbasin,
which covers most of Kings County, on probation for
lacking an adequate groundwater plan as required per the
Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA). … A
Kings County Superior Judge issued preliminary injunction
holding off those sanctions in Sept. 2024. … The Water Board
appealed and, in October 2025, the 5th District reversed the
injunction.
It’s going to get wet over the next week across the Bay Area
and the Sierra Nevada. That’s good news for local water
supplies and the state’s subpar snowpack, but the coming cold
system could complicate travel to the slopes for winter sports
enthusiasts. National Weather Service forecasters said they
expect multiple bands of precipitation to move over Northern
California starting Saturday and lasting through late next
week. … Forecasters expect the system to impact the
Sierra Nevada starting late Sunday, with heavy snow starting
Monday. More than 4 feet of snow could fall in the
Sierra Nevada next week — a huge boost for the state’s
snowpack, which is currently at about 54% of normal
for this time of year.
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.
