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.
Some people in California and across the West struggle to access
safe, reliable and affordable water to meet their everyday needs
for drinking, cooking and sanitation.
There are many ways to support our nonprofit mission by donating
in someone’s honor or memory, 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.
Our popular Layperson’s Guide
to the Colorado River has just been updated to reflect the
latest developments along America’s most contested and
meticulously managed river, including efforts to reach agreement
on a critical drought contingency plan, an assessment of certain
tribal water rights and a new binational water agreement with
Mexico.
The Colorado River provides water to more than 35 million people
and 4 million acres of farmland in a region encompassing some
246,000 square miles in the southwestern United States and
Mexico.
Registration is now open for our next slate of spring programs,
part of a year packed with engaging tours, workshops and
conferences on key water topics in California and across the
West.
Seating is always limited for our events and tickets for our
first water tour of 2025 – along the Lower Colorado
River in March – have been going fast!
Current Foundation member organizations receive access to
coveted sponsorship opportunities for our tours
and events, all of which are prime networking
opportunities for the water professionals in attendance! Contact
Nick Gray for more information.
Newly inaugurated President Donald Trump called
the Los Angeles County wildfires “tragic” during his
inaugural address Monday in Washington DC and he vowed to
prevent such disasters from happening again. … Trump has been
deeply critical of the response to the fires. He declared
California Gov. Gavin Newsom “incompetent” and blamed the
mammoth fires on the state’s water policies.
“Governor Gavin Newscum should immediately go to Northern
California and open up the water main, and let the water flow
into his dry, starving, burning state, instead of having it go
out into the Pacific Ocean,” Trump posted on social media as
the fires broke out. Newsom has scoffed at Trump’s salvos,
branding them misinformation, and has offered to explain the
situation to Trump should he visit the state.
In the final days of President Joe Biden’s presidency, the
Colorado River District locked down the $40 million award from
the Bureau of Reclamation it needed to purchase the Shoshone
Water Rights from Xcel Energy. The river district struck a deal
with Xcel in December 2023, agreeing to a $98.5 million price
tag to acquire the water rights tied to the hydroelectric power
plant in Glenwood Canyon. Acquiring the rights — which are
among the Colorado River’s oldest and largest non-consumptive
rights — will ensure that the river’s historic in-stream flows
continue in perpetuity, regardless of the plant’s future.
After raising $56.9 million from the state legislature, its
board and the various Western Slope municipalities and
utilities it serves, in November the Colorado River District
submitted for $40 million in federal dollars from the Inflation
Reduction Act.
Drinking water advisories remained in place as of Monday, Jan.
20, as another red flag wind alert returned and wildfires
continued to burn in Los Angeles County. A spokesperson for the
L.A. Department of Water and Power said water continues to be
tested daily for safe drinking use and that the caution remains
in the Pacific Palisades area. And Pasadena Water and Power
officials on Monday extended the Do-Not-Drink-Water Notice due
to facilities that were affected by the Eaton Fire. … the
department’s website also noted that water pressure to the
Palisades area is “fully restored and the three,
1-million-gallon tanks serving the higher elevations are
refilled and serving the community.”
… The Earth’s spinning, however, has recently begun to speed
up and the length of the day has started getting shorter, for
reasons not fully understood. In fact, research by a
geophysicist in California finds that it’s only a matter of
years before an extra second will need to be subtracted from
universal time, rather than added to it. This possibility is
raising concern because many computers, which have been
programmed to handle an additional second, aren’t designed to
lose a second, threatening to create glitches in systems
governing aviation, financial markets, healthcare and more.
It’s reminiscent of Y2K, when widespread bugs were feared when
the calendar flipped to 2000. The research, published last year
in the science journal Nature, also finds that such a negative
leap second and its potential problems are being delayed,
perhaps surprisingly, by climate change. Ice that is
melting around the Earth’s poles is sending water — and
mass — toward the equator and consequently
slowing the planet’s rotation, counteracting the faster spin.
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.
