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.
Today is Big Day of Giving! Your donation will help
the Water Education Foundation continue its work to enhance
public understanding of our most precious natural resource
in California and across the West – water.
Big Day of Giving is a 24-hour regional fundraising event that
has profound benefits for our educational programs and
publications on drought, floods, groundwater, snowpack, rivers
and reservoirs in California and the Colorado River Basin.
Your tax-deductible donation of
any size helps support our tours, scholarships, teacher training
workshops, free access to our daily water newsfeed and more. You
have until midnight to help us reach our $10,000
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There is no need to wait to show
your love for the Water Education Foundation! You can donate
early to our Big Day of Giving campaign and help us reach
our fundraising goal of $10,000 by May 7.
Big Day of Giving is a 24-hour online fundraising marathon
for nonprofits. Donations will benefit our programs and
publications centering on the most precious natural
resource in California and across the
West.
… To boost a dwindling Lake Powell hundreds
of miles downstream and keep its dam generating electricity for
more than 350,000 homes, federal officials are planning
to let out as much as one-third of the water in Flaming Gorge
over the next year. … In a way, it’s familiar
territory. A similar effort four years ago sent big quantities
of water from Flaming Gorge into the Green River, eventually
reaching the Colorado River and feeding into Lake Powell. But
the new plan could draw down up to double the 2022 amount.
… Matt Tippets, chair of the three-member commission for
Daggett County, which encompasses the Utah side of Flaming
Gorge, is staying optimistic, saying the reservoir will remain
vast even if it dips down to just 60% full. … “If this
happens two or three times, two or three years in a row, it may
be dire, but I don’t believe we’re at that point yet.”
Chances are rising that an El Niño expected to form soon could
become one of the most powerful such events on record,
according to new data released this week. … It’s
the third consecutive month that multiple models have predicted
that a potentially record-breaking El Niño could drive
global temperatures to new highs and shift patterns of
droughts, floods, heat, humidity and sea ice across the
planet. … Above-average summer and fall
temperatures in the Western U.S., possibly coming with
unusual humidity, downpours and tropical storm remnants in the
Southwest and Intermountain West. … This could
contribute to milder winter temperatures in the U.S. — as well
as big storms along the West Coast … as El Niño’s impacts
reach a peak from the end of the year into early 2027.
California Department of Water Resources Director Karla
Nemeth has been selected to lead the Association of
California Water Agencies (ACWA) as its next executive
director, President Ernie Avila announced today. Her selection
follows a nationwide recruitment process and overwhelming
support of the association’s Board of Directors. Effective
Sept. 1, Nemeth will oversee staff of the nation’s largest
statewide coalition of public water agencies. Based in
Sacramento, ACWA represents approximately 470 members
responsible for 90 percent of the water delivered to cities,
farms and businesses across California.
… Last year, more sections of the country’s rivers were
reconnected thanks to dam removals than at any other time in
history, according to the nonprofit group American Rivers.
… But federal money allocated to rehabilitate and remove
dams is far less than what’s needed. … Under the Trump
administration, many federal grants for dam removal and safety
have also stalled amid staffing and budget
cuts. … In April, the Trump administration
intervened in PG&E’s decommissioning of two
hydropower dams in Northern California. The two dams
have not produced electricity since 2021 because of equipment
failure and the utility determined that fixing the equipment
didn’t make economic sense. But the administration said they
were needed for water security.
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.
