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.
The Water Education Foundation’s
2025 Annual
Reportis now available in an interactive,
digital format and recaps how we accomplished a lot of
“firsts” last year.
A standout moment was our first-ever Klamath River
Tour, where we brought 45 participants into the heart of
the watershed that underwent the nation’s largest dam removal
project.
Big Day of Giving may be ending soon but
you have until midnight to support the Water Education
Foundation’s tours, workshops, publications and other programs
aimed at building water literacy across California and the West!
Donate
now to help us reach our $10,000
fundraising goal by midnight - we are only
$4,120 away!
At the Foundation, we believe that education is as precious as
water. Your donations help us empower next-generation
leaders from all sectors of the water world to broaden their
knowledge and build their collaborative skills through our
popular Water Leader programs in
California and the Colorado River Basin.
Denver Water customers have yet to embrace a strict water diet
this year, cutting water use just 5% this month as the outdoor
watering season begins. The utility, which serves 1.5 million
customers, has asked residents and businesses to slash
water use by 20% this summer to combat extreme
drought. At the same time, reservoirs, unable to
refill after melting snows evaporated early due to a surprising
March heatwave, are dropping. The utility said its storage
system is just 79% full, down from the 89% mark normally seen
at this time of year. … Aurora homeowners and businesses
have cut use 6.5%, Aurora Water spokesperson Shonnie Cline
said. And the city’s reservoirs are similarly low, standing at
just 56% full. This time last year they were 66% full.
As the rapid expansion of artificial intelligence drives an
unprecedented boom in data center construction across
California, a bipartisan push for tighter industry oversight is
gaining traction in the state capitol. Assemblyman Jeff
Gonzalez (R-Indio) cast his vote this week in favor of a
sweeping package of legislation designed to pull back the
curtain on the secretive, energy-hungry facilities. The move
highlights growing anxiety in rural and suburban communities
over how the massive computing hubs will affect local
infrastructure. … The legislative package targets the
core operational demands of data centers, which require
massive amounts of electricity to run servers and millions of
gallons of water to keep them cool.
… A late-season storm has brought rain across much of
California, particularly the northern half, and snow to
the higher elevations of the Sierra Nevada range. Many
locations have recorded a quarter inch to an inch of rain this
week. The precipitation is welcome at a time of year when
vegetation is drying out and the risk of wildfires is
increasing. … But the low threat of fires is not
expected to last long with a return to warm, dry weather
forecast for next week. … On Tuesday, thunderstorms
rumbled through the Central Valley, and short bursts of rain
and hail were reported in the greater Sacramento area. On
Wednesday, snow dusted the Sierra Nevada. … “These are
beneficial rains, nothing that causes flooding,” said Brian
Hurley, a meteorologist with the Weather Prediction Center.
The Interior Department unveiled Thursday the first iteration
of a new public tool for mapping federal lands and waters,
rolling out a unified “national map” with boundaries used by
five agencies. The U.S. Geological Service led creation of the
digital map to meet requirements laid out by Congress in the
“Modernizing Access to Our Public Land (MapLand) Act” signed
into law in 2022. That legislation directed Interior to
standardize data on federal lands across five agencies: the
Bureau of Reclamation, National Park Service, Bureau of Land
Management, Fish and Wildlife Service, and Forest
Service. Congress subsequently passed the “Modernizing
Access to Our Public Waters (MAPWaters) Act,” which was signed
into law in late 2025, which applied similar requirements to
federally managed waters.
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.
