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Happy New Year! Learn What’s on Tap at the Water Education Foundation for 2026

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 for a 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.

Right before the holidays, we published our updated Layperson’s Guide to the Delta, which you can now order.

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!

Announcement

Get Tips on Applying for 2026 Colorado River Water Leader Cohort; Layperson’s Guide to the Delta Hot Off the Press; Calif. Water Leaders Release Water Rights Modernization Recommendations

Are you an emerging water leader in the Colorado River Basin? Consider applying for our 2026 Colorado River Water Leaders cohort.

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. 

Water News You Need to Know

Aquafornia news Los Angeles Times

Friday Top of the Scroll: Trump administration calls 7 governors to Colorado River talks in D.C.

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.

Other Colorado River news:

Aquafornia news E&E News by Politico

Newsom steps into labor fight over Sites Reservoir

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.

Aquafornia news WyoFile (Cheyenne)

‘Snow drought’ may result in extra release from Flaming Gorge

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.

Other snowpack news around the West:

Aquafornia news KRCR (Redding, Calif.)

Nearly one million salmon released into California rice fields to aid survival and growth

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. 

Other anadromous fish news:

Online Water Encyclopedia

Wetlands

Sacramento National Wildlife RefugeWetlands are among the world’s most important and hardest-working ecosystems, rivaling rainforests and coral reefs in productivity. 

They produce high oxygen levels, filter water pollutants, sequester carbon, reduce flooding and erosion and recharge groundwater.

Bay-Delta Tour participants viewing the Bay Model

Bay Model

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.

Aquapedia background Colorado River Basin Map

Salton Sea

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

Lake Oroville shows the effects of drought in 2014.

Drought

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.