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!
A coalition of farmers in Central Valley sent a letter to
President Trump on Monday, urging advancement of the
controversial Shasta Dam enlargement plan. The development
follows a series of letters sent late last year by local water
agencies, state Republican lawmakers and water contractors,
where they called the administration to fund the Shasta Dam
raise project using money from Trump’s One Big, Beautiful Bill
budget. The project is estimated to cost between $1.4 billion
and $2 billion. … Meanwhile, state officials and tribes
and environmental groups have argued the project would threaten
an already struggling salmon population and increase flood
risks.
Federal forecasters dramatically cut their estimates Friday for
how much water will flow down the Colorado River this year —
projections that now thrust the Trump administration into
politically contentious decisions about how to operate the
river’s dams. The Feb. 1 forecast the Colorado Basin Forecast
Center released last week projects the amount of water flowing
from the river’s headwaters into Lake Powell this year will be
one-third less compared with its already grim Jan. 1 forecast.
… The new forecast comes at a critical moment for the
management of the drought-riddled waterway, which serves 40
million people from Denver to Los Angeles to Phoenix. The
Interior Department’s deadline for a major new
water-sharing deal is less than one week away.
The Trump administration wants some of the world’s largest
technology companies to publicly commit to a new compact
governing the rapid expansion of AI data centers, according to
two administration officials granted anonymity to discuss
private conversations. A draft of the compact obtained by
POLITICO lays out commitments designed to ensure data centers
powering the AI boom do not raise household electricity prices,
strain water supplies or undermine grid
reliability — and that the companies driving power demand also
carry the cost of building new infrastructure. The proposed
pact, which is not final and could be subject to change …
could bind OpenAI, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Facebook parent
Meta and other AI giants to a broad set of energy,
water and community principles.
… For over a decade, [ecologist Greta] Wengert and her
colleagues have warned that illegal cannabis grows …
dangerously pollute California’s public lands and pristine
watersheds, with lasting consequences for ecosystems,
water and wildlife. … In recent work they
published with scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey, the
team found that illegal grows pulsed pollutants from plastic,
painkillers, personal care products, pot and pesticides into
the soil that could be detected months or even years later.
Some contaminants also showed up in nearby streams.
… Force-feeding waterways the excess nutrients in
fertilizer can upend entire ecosystems and spur algae blooms.
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.
