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.
California’s water managers have long looked for ways to adapt to a hotter, drier future where the impacts of climate change leave less water to meet the state’s needs.
At our annual Water 101 Workshopon March 26 in Sacramento, participants will hear from Joel Metzger, deputy director for statewide water resources planning, on efforts underway by the California Department of Water Resources to achieve a target of identifying 9 million acre-feet of additional water supply by 2040, roughly equal to the capacity of two Shasta Reservoirs.
The agenda for the workshop features some of the leading policy and legal experts in California who will detail the historical, legal and political facets of water management in the state. Seating is limited and filling up quickly, so don’t miss out!
The Water Education Foundation, which celebrates its 49th birthday this year, is proud to be the only organization in the West providing comprehensive, unbiased information about the region’s most critical natural resource. Through our workshops, water leadership programs and explorations of key watersheds, we bring the West’s myriad challenges and opportunities into context to help build sound and collective solutions to water issues.
So, don’t miss your chance to go beyond the news headlines and gain a deeper understanding of how water flows across California and its challenges by signing up for our popular spring tours and workshops below, all of which have limited seating and may sell out before long!
February storms brought fresh snow to the Sierra Nevada, but
California’s snowpack remains far smaller than average during a
winter that has brought record warmth across much of the West.
California water officials said Friday that the Sierra snowpack
is at 66% of average for this time of year. … California
relies on the Sierra snowpack for about 30% of its water. But
extreme warmth across the West this winter has meant more
precipitation falling as rain, not snow — a symptom of global
warming, which in recent years has been pushing average snow
lines higher in the mountains and changing the timing of
runoff.
Other snowpack and water supply news around the West:
A simple bill on the Colorado River Authority of Utah has been
amended in a sign that negotiations are not going well. House
Bill 473, sponsored by Rep. Scott Chew, R-Jensen, started
simply by moving the Colorado River Authority of Utah from
underneath the Governor’s Office and over to the Utah
Department of Natural Resources. But language has been
added into the bill to bolster its authority to stick up for
Utah’s interests in the ongoing high-stakes negotiations over
the river that supplies water to more than 40 million
across the West. Rep. Chew told members of the Senate
Natural Resources Committee that it was done because
negotiations between the seven states along the Colorado River
have not yielded a new agreement.
… Urban water agencies that get Central Valley Project
supplies from the Sacramento and American rivers are set to
receive 100% of their contracted water. Irrigation water
service contractors — or agricultural water users — on the
Sacramento River are also getting their full contracted
amounts. Jim Peifer, executive director of the Sacramento
Regional Water Authority, said he views the allocation as a
positive sign of water supply conditions this year, with no
shortages expected for the region. Peifer, however, warned that
conditions can change from year to year.
California officials on Thursday adopted the final two state
permits that California’s last operating nuclear power plant
needed to continue operating through 2030. The Central
Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board approved a
certification that Diablo Canyon’s waste discharges comply with
the Clean Water Act and a permit regulating how the plant
discharges water from its cooling system back into the Pacific
Ocean. Pacific Gas & Electric, which operates the plant,
celebrated the decision.
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.
