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announcements about upcoming events, tours, new Western
Water articles on key water topics and more!
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Join us May 2 for an open house and
reception at our midtown Sacramento office to meet our staff
and learn more about what we do to educate and foster
understanding of California’s most precious natural resource —
water.
At the open house, you can enjoy refreshments and chat with our
staff about our tours, conferences, maps, publications and
training programs for teachers and up-and-coming water industry
professionals. You’ll also be able to learn more about how you
can support our work.
The Water Education Foundation is
your trusted go-to source for impartial news, information and
background on water resources in California and the Southwest.
Our flagship publication, Western Water, has
been written and edited by Foundation journalists for more than
40 years.
In one of our latest articles, we looked at how water
managers in Kern County, with its $7 billion a year farm economy,
were striving to devise a plan that manages and protects
groundwater for the long term yet ensures the county’s economy
can continue to thrive, even with less water. We also recently
reported on a talk by former Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt
in which he urged creation of a Bay-Delta Compact as a way to end
a “culture of conflict” in California’s key water hub, the
Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
The Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta is
the West Coast’s largest estuary and a vital hub in California’s
complex water delivery system. It’s also a rich farming area, an
important wetland and an ecologically troubled region.
On our Bay-Delta Tour June
5-7, participants will hear from a diverse group of experts
including water managers, environmentalists, farmers, engineers
and scientists who will offer various perspectives on a proposed
tunnel project that would carry water beneath the Delta, efforts
to revitalize the Delta and risks that threaten its delicate
ecological balance.
World Water Day is today, March 22,
and to mark the occasion the Foundation is offering a special
25 percent discount on our beautiful poster-size maps,
layperson’s guides and other water publications.
Use the promo code WORLDWATERDAY19 when checking
out of our online store.
Time may be running short to
register for our Central Valley Tour April 3-5, but get ahead
on your summer plans now by signing up for a Foundation
water tour to learn about key water resource issues in
California.
On tap this June is our Bay-Delta Tour that traverses the
Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, a 720,000-acre network of islands
and canals that supports the state’s water system and is
California’s most crucial water and ecological resource.
Sign up today to attend next week’s Santa Ana River Watershed
Conference in Orange County, where engaging and informative
discussions on the region’s most pressing water issues will take
place.
Officials from the California Department of Water Resources, the
Public Policy Institute of California and the Water Education
Foundation will join regional water managers and federal agency
representatives at the daylong event,
“Moving
Forward Together: From Planning to Action Across the
Watershed“ at Cal State Fullerton.
For the bulk of her career, Jayne
Harkins has devoted her energy to issues associated with the
management of the Colorado River, both with the U.S. Bureau of
Reclamation and with the Colorado River Commission of Nevada.
Now her career is taking a different direction. In a Western Water Q&A, Harkins talks about her new
role and her priorities as U.S. Commissioner of the United States
section of the International Boundary and Water Commission. The
U.S.-Mexico agency oversees myriad water matters between the two
countries as they seek to sustainably manage the supply and water
quality of the Colorado River, including its once-thriving Delta
in Mexico, and other rivers the two countries share.
Recent rains have left the San
Joaquin Valley’s reservoirs in better shape, but groundwater
depletion and the resulting ground subsidence continue to beset
farmers and water managers. What will this year hold? How are
regional stakeholders meeting the requirements of the Sustainable
Groundwater Management Act? And will there be enough water this
year to satisfy the competing needs of farms, people and the
environment?
Your best opportunity to understand the challenges and
opportunities of this vital resource in the nation’s breadbasket
is to join us on our Central Valley Tour April
3-5.
Former Interior Secretary and
Arizona governor Bruce Babbitt will be the distinguished speaker
at the
2019 Anne J. Schneider Lecture on April 3 at the Crocker Art
Museum in downtown Sacramento.
Babbitt’s talk is titled “Parting the Waters — Will It Take a
Miracle?”
The event begins at 4 p.m. in the Crocker Art Museum’s Setzer
Auditorium. The lecture will be followed by a conversation with
Ellen Hanak, director of the Public Policy Institute of
California’s Water Policy Center, and a reception. Here
is where to sign up for the event, which is free.
The San Joaquin Valley, known as the
nation’s breadbasket, grows a cornucopia of fruits, nuts and
other agricultural products.
During our three-day Central Valley Tour April
3-5, you will meet farmers who will explain how they prepare
the fields, irrigate their crops and harvest the produce that
helps feed the nation and beyond. We also will drive through
hundreds of miles of farmland and visit the rivers, dams,
reservoirs and groundwater wells that provide the water.
We’re on the road this week with our
three-day tour of the Lower Colorado
River to explore water infrastructure, farms and habitat
restoration efforts (you can follow along on Twitter!), but there is
still time to join one of our other 2019 tours to learn about key
water resource issues in California.
Weave through the nation’s
breadbasket and gain a better understanding of water issues
and challenges in the San Joaquin Valley on the Foundation’s
Central Valley Tour
April 3-5.
This tour visits farms and major infrastructure, such as
Friant Dam near Fresno and San Luis Reservoir, the nation’s
largest off-stream reservoir and a key water facility
serving both the State Water Project and the federal Central
Valley Project.
The Public Policy Institute of
California has long cited water
management in the Santa Ana River watershed as one of the
foremost examples of integrated, multi-benefit water management
planning in the state.
At the March 29th Santa
Ana River Watershed Conference in Orange County, the
PPIC’s Ellen
Hanak will put the top managers of the watershed’s five
major water districts on the hot seat to uncover the region’s
latest innovations and find out what the next generation of
integrated water management planning looks like.
We’ll post updates on our Twitter account @WaterEdFdn about people,
issues and places as we travel along the Lower Colorado River
from Hoover Dam to the Coachella Valley Feb. 27 through March 1.
In the meantime, a water utility that serves the Imperial Valley,
where the Salton Sea is located in southeastern California, wants
$200 million from the federal government for the lake’s
restoration efforts before signing the Drought Contingency Plan
for the Colorado River.
You can see this sea up close during our Lower Colorado River
Tour, Feb. 27-March 1, when we will visit the fragile
ecosystem and hear from several stakeholders working to address
challenges facing the sea.
Water Education Foundation is your
go-to source for news and information about water in California
and the West.
Each weekday, we compile Aquafornia, a
roundup of major water news from around California, the Colorado
River Basin and the western United States.
We produce our own journalism in Western Water, our flagship
online publication offering in-depth examinations of critical
water issues as well as shorter notebook articles on interesting
water topics, spotlight stories offering a look at innovative
projects and Q&A’s with newsmakers.
Join the team at the Water Education
Foundation, a nonprofit in Sacramento that has been a
trusted source of water news and educational programs in
California and across the West for more than 40 years.
We have a full-time opening for an enthusiastic, team-oriented,
multitasking Programs
& Communications Specialist at our office in midtown
Sacramento.
The Santa Ana Watershed Project
Authority and the Water Education Foundation are once again
teaming up to produce the
2019 Santa Ana River Watershed Conference on March
29 at Cal State Fullerton.
Go deep into one of California’s
most pressing issues – groundwater -
by visiting an extensometer that measures subsidence,
an active aquifer storage and recovery well, a recycling facility
that recharges water into the ground and more.
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.
