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.
Some people in California and across the West struggle to access
safe, reliable and affordable water to meet their everyday needs
for drinking, cooking and sanitation.
There are many ways to support our nonprofit mission by donating
in someone’s honor or memory, 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.
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!
La Niña has finally emerged after months of anticipation, but
there’s a catch. The climate pattern — which typically has an
outsized influence on winter weather in the US — is rather weak
and may not stick around for long. But that won’t totally
eliminate its effect. And, despite its late arrival, it’s
already played a clear role in this winter’s weather.
Forecasters closely monitor La Niña and its counterpart El Niño
because they influence global weather in a way that’s largely
consistent and predictable well in advance – especially when
the patterns are strong. … Despite the timing and its
weakened state, La Niña’s atmospheric influence has already
been apparent this winter. California is the most
obvious example. Winter in Northern California is
typically wetter during La Niña while the southern half of the
state is drier than normal. Those extremes are playing out in a
major way: Northern California has had plenty of
rain while Southern California is so tinder-dry that
thousands of acres ignited this week.
The Biden-Harris Administration has announced a $514 million
investment aimed at ensuring clean, reliable drinking water for
communities across the Western United States. The Department of
Interior says this funding is part of President Biden’s
Investing in America agenda and will support five major water
storage and conveyance projects. These initiatives are designed
to address long-term water scarcity issues in the West, where
communities and ecosystems have been facing increasing
challenges related to water availability. A significant portion
of the investment will go to California, including $129 million
earmarked for the highly anticipated Sites Reservoir Project.
This off-stream storage project, located on the Sacramento
River system near Maxwell, California, will develop up to 1.5
million acre-feet of new water storage capacity.
The devastating wildfires that have ravaged Southern California
erupted following a stark shift from wet weather to extremely
dry weather — a phenomenon scientists describe as “hydroclimate
whiplash.” New research shows these abrupt wet-to-dry and
dry-to-wet swings, which can worsen wildfires, flooding and
other hazards, are growing more frequent and intense because of
human-caused climate change. “We’re in a whiplash event
now, wet to dry, in Southern California,” said Daniel Swain, a
UCLA climate scientist who led the research. “The evidence
shows that hydroclimate whiplash has already increased due to
global warming, and further warming will bring about even
larger increases.”
Happy New Year to all the friends, supporters, readers and
participants of the tours, articles and workshops we featured
in 2024! … 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.
… 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. On April 10, we
will be hosting our popular Water 101 Workshop in
Sacramento.
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.
