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
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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.
Our 41ˢᵗ annual Water
Summit, an engaging day of discussions addressing
critical water issues in California and across the West, will be
held on Wednesday, Oct. 1, in Sacramento with the theme,
Embracing Uncertainty in the West.
Speakers and conversations will explore how to move forward with
critical decisions despite myriad unknowns facing our most
precious natural resource, including updates and insights
from leadership at both the state and federal levels in shaping
water resource priorities in California and across the West.
California Natural Resources
Secretary Wade Crowfoot will be the keynote speaker at our
2025 Water
Summit where leading experts and top
policymakers will explore how to move forward with critical
decisions despite myriad unknowns facing the West’s most precious
natural resource.
Now in its 41ˢᵗ year, the Foundation’s premier annual event on
Oct. 1 in downtown Sacramento will focus on the theme,
Embracing Uncertainty in the West. A
full agenda featuring a slate of engaging panelists will be
available soon, but the day will be filled with lively
discussions on topics such as:
The points and counterpoints are in: Colorado’s water
heavyweights have laid out their arguments about the future of
a powerful Colorado River water right ahead of a state hearing
in mid-September. A Western Slope coalition led by the
Colorado River District and Front Range groups — Aurora Water,
Colorado Springs Utilities, Denver Water and Northern Water —
are debating a potential change to water rights tied to the
Shoshone Power Plant in Glenwood Canyon. The influential water
rights, owned by an Xcel Energy subsidiary, impact how water
flows across the state.
For more than two decades, satellites have tracked the total
amounts of water held in glaciers, ice sheets, lakes, rivers,
soil and the world’s vast natural reservoirs underground —
aquifers. An extensive global analysis of that data now reveals
fresh water is rapidly disappearing beneath much of humanity’s
feet. … Scientists are seeing “mega-drying”
regions that are immense and expanding — one stretching from
the western United States through Mexico to
Central America. … There are two primary causes of the
desiccation: rising temperatures unleashed by using oil and
gas, and widespread overpumping of water that took millennia to
accumulate underground.
The state is poised to spend a little more than $7 million to
get the fish hatchery near Kernville back up and running in
order to protect the endemic Kern River rainbow trout. The plan
is to find pure Kern River rainbow DNA to start a broodstock at
the hatchery and stock only those fish in the upper reaches of
the north fork of the river. Somewhere above Fairview Dam,
about 16 miles upriver from Kernville. … The hatchery has
been deemed vital to the maintenance of the species, already
listed as “of concern” by CDFW and the U.S. Forest Service.
… The leafy greens and other produce grown in the Salinas
Valley need lots of fertilizer, but that demand plus the fact
that most of these crops have shallow roots, means it’s easy
for extra nitrogen to get into the groundwater here. It
dissolves in water and sinks below the roots, eventually
reaching the aquifer. And once it’s there, nitrate—which is the
form of nitrogen most fertilizers take—is hard to remove.
… That’s part of the challenge for the Central Coast,
where over 14,000 people rely on water with dangerous levels of
nitrates that can elevate risks of cancers, thyroid problems
and blue baby syndrome.
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.
