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.
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 biennial program, which will run from March to September
next year, selects about a dozen rising
stars from the seven states that rely on the river
– California, Nevada, Arizona, Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and New
Mexico – Mexico and tribal nations.
The seven-month program is designed for working professionals who
explore issues surrounding the iconic Southwest
river, deepen their water knowledge, and build leadership
and collaborative skills.
Listen to
a recording of our virtual Q&A session
where executive director Jenn Bowles and other Foundation staff
provided an overview on the program and tips on applying.
With Western states deadlocked in negotiations over how to cut
water use along the Colorado River, the Trump administration
has called in the governors of seven states to Washington to
try to hash out a consensus. The governors of at least four —
Utah, Arizona, Nevada and Wyoming — say
they’ll attend the meeting next week led by Interior Secretary
Doug Burgum, but California Gov. Gavin Newsom
won’t. Newsom is “unable to attend but plans to send
key representatives of his administration to attend in his
place,” spokesperson Anthony Martinez said in an email.
… As the negotiations remain at an impasse, the
possibility of the states suing one another is increasing.
Gov. Gavin Newsom is stepping into a labor dispute that could
threaten the timeline of one of his flagship water projects:
the planned Sites Reservoir north of Sacramento. Newsom
(D) wrote to the Sites Project Authority Board of Directors on
Friday expressing concern that the board’s choice to finalize a
contract with Barnard Construction Co. to build the roughly
$6.8 billion reservoir was alienating unions. “The
Construction Manager you select must ensure that the project’s
ambitious timetable is not disrupted by the potential for labor
unrest,” Newsom wrote. … Sites Reservoir would be the
first major new reservoir built in California in decades. The
project would divert water from the Sacramento River into an
offstream reservoir capable of holding up to 1.5 million
acre-feet of water.
Wyoming’s top water managers are warning that a significant
drawdown of Flaming Gorge Reservoir this spring is likely
imminent due to low snowpack and generally dry conditions
throughout the seven-state Colorado River
Basin region. Wyoming is a headwaters of the Colorado
River system, mostly via the Green River, which feeds Flaming
Gorge. As of Jan. 8, snow cover across the West was at its
lowest since 2001. … Flaming Gorge, which straddles the
Wyoming-Utah border, is one of the key reservoirs in the
Colorado River system that water managers turn to for extra
releases when there’s a projected shortage — primarily to
ensure operational water levels at Lake
Powell.
Nearly one million young salmon are being released this week
into flooded rice fields near the Yolo Bypass. The project is a
partnership with stakeholders from the Bridge Group and
the Coleman National Fish Hatchery. The juvenile fish,
called salmon fry, will spend several weeks growing in the
shallow fields. After that, they will swim into the Sacramento
River and begin their trip to the Pacific Ocean. The
effort is based on scientific research showing flooded rice
fields can help young Chinook salmon grow and survive.
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.
