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Water articles on key water topics and more!
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Register now for one of our most
popular events – Water
101, which for the first time will include an optional
daylong tour examining one of California’s most critical
resources, groundwater.
Water 101, to be held Feb. 7 at McGeorge School of Law in
Sacramento, details the history, geography, legal and
political facets of water in California as well as hot topics
currently facing the state. Taught by some of California’s
leading policy and legal experts, the workshop
gives attendees a deeper understanding of the state’s most
precious natural resource.
Hear firsthand about recent efforts
to reach agreement on a drought contingency plan and see the
bathtub ring around Lake Mead, now only 38 percent full after 19
years of drought, during our Lower Colorado River
Tour Feb. 27 – March 1.
As the tour weaves along the Colorado River, participants will
see and learn about the important role water from the river plays
in the three Lower Basin states of Nevada, Arizona and
California, and how it helps to sustain their cities, farms and
wildlife areas.
The 2018
Water Leaders class organized by the Water Education
Foundation completed its year with a report outlining policy
recommendations for improving water management through data.
The class of 22 from
various stakeholder groups and backgrounds that hailed from
cities and towns across California - including one from
Nevada – had full editorial control to choose
recommendations.
Don’t miss this last chance to score
a sweet holiday deal for anyone interested in water in
California and the Southwest: The paperback “Water & the
Shaping of California,” a treasure trove of gorgeous
color photos, historic maps, water literature and famous sayings
about water for just $17.50 — a 50%
discount.
That is just one of the special holiday deals from the
Foundation. We’re also offering a 20% discount
on our popular water maps, guides, teacher resources and more,
and $15 off copies of “Water More or
Less.”
Our popular Water
101 Workshop is a once-a-year opportunity to get a solid
grounding on the history, legal and regulatory facets
of California’s most precious natural resource.
Our Feb. 7 workshop in Sacramento will feature a special
focus on groundwater, which
provides roughly 40 percent of the state’s water supply in an
average year and much more during drought years when creeks,
rivers and reservoirs are strapped.
Don’t miss this opportunity to visit key sites along one of the
nation’s most famous rivers, including a private tour of Hoover
Dam, Central Arizona Project’s Mark Wilmer pumping plant and the
Sonny Bono National Wildlife Refuge.
The tour also visits the beginning of the Colorado River
Aqueduct, the Salton Sea, the All-American Canal and agricultural
regions in the Imperial, Palo Verde and Coachella valleys.
In the world of water, 2018 could
easily be called the
“Year of the Woman,” with noteworthy appointments of women to
top leadership posts in California and at the national level.
Women have had their hands in water issues for a long time, but
their growing presence has been spotlighted by those key
appointments and the understanding that, in what’s traditionally
been a male-dominated field, women are seizing the opportunity to
contribute to the discussion and have their voices heard.
Here’s a sweet deal for the
holidays: Get 50 percent off the paperback Water & the
Shaping of California, a treasure trove of gorgeous
color photos, water literature and famous sayings about water.
This beautifully designed oversize book discusses the engineering
feats, political decisions and popular opinion that reshaped the
nature – flood and drought – and society – gold, grain and
growth – that led to the water projects that created the
California we know today. The book Includes a foreword by the
late Kevin Starr, the Golden State’s premier historian.
This book normally retails for $35, but you can get it for a
limited time for just $17.50. Use the discount code
HOLIDAYBOOK at checkout to get your 50 percent
discount. It’s the perfect gift for anyone interested in water in
California.
Will El Niño rescue California’s
winter after a very dry fall? Can the state bank on atmospheric
rivers of storms to refill its reservoirs? How far can
forecasters peer into the future to gauge what’s ahead for the
2019 winter?
A one-day workshop Dec. 5 in Irvine cosponsored
by the Foundation and the California Department of Water
Resources will feature experts from NASA Jet Propulsion
Laboratory, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, DWR and the
Western Regional Climate Center discussing the state of the
science in long-range forecasting – critical for managing water
supplies — and what may be ahead for this winter. Here’s where
to sign up for Water Year
2019: Feast or Famine.
The Irvine workshop is one of several Foundation events and tours
planned over the next few months.
A multipronged effort to engage with
economically disadvantaged and underrepresented communities in
the Santa Ana River watershed to learn what their water needs are
and how those needs could be met will be highlighted March 29 at
the Santa
Ana River Watershed Conference in Orange County.
An array of speakers will discuss the innovative work they’ve
been doing, some of the things they’ve learned and tools they’ve
developed during a panel discussion at the daylong event,
Moving Forward Together: From Planning to Action
Across the Watershed, being held at Cal State
Fullerton.
Educating the next generation about
one of the most precious resources in California – and on the
planet – is a key part of the Water Education Foundation’s
mission through Project WET (Water Education for Teachers).Please
help us continue that work by giving
back on Giving Tuesday.
Forecasters are usually on the mark
when predicting what tomorrow’s weather will bring. But can we
ever get accurate precipitation forecasts — critical for
managing water supplies — weeks to months in advance?
At Water Year
2019: Feast or Famine, a one-day workshop Dec. 5 in Irvine,
scientists from NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Scripps
Institution of Oceanography, the Western Regional Climate Center
and the California Department of Water Resources will offer
insights into the latest research on improving long-range weather
forecasting and what it means for water management.
Our slate of water tours for 2019
will include a new tour along the Central Coast to view a river
where a dam was removed, check out efforts to desalt ocean water,
recycle wastewater and manage groundwater and seawater intrusion.
We’ll also take a new route for our Headwaters Tour to check out
a pilot project for thinning the forest in the Yuba River
Watershed.
Our yearlong Water Leaders program is aimed at
providing a deeper understanding of California water
issues by attending water tours, studying a topic in-depth
and working with a mentor.
You can apply for the 2019 class today; the deadline is Dec. 4.
Download an application
here. Make sure to read tips on
applying first.
Tomorrow’s weather forecast may be
spot on, but can we ever get accurate precipitation forecasts
weeks to months in advance?
At Water Year
2019: Feast or Famine, a one-day workshop Dec. 5 in Irvine,
scientists from NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Scripps
Institution of Oceanography, the Western Regional Climate Center
and the California Department of Water Resources will offer
insights into the latest research on improving long-range weather
forecasting and what it means for water management.
Registration is now open for one of
our most popular events – Water
101, which for the first time will include an optional
daylong tour examining one of California’s most critical
resources, groundwater.
Water 101, to be held Feb. 7 at McGeorge School of Law in
Sacramento, details the history, geography, legal and
political facets of water in California as well as hot topics
currently facing the state. Taught by some of California’s
leading policy and legal experts, the workshop
gives attendees a deeper understanding of the state’s most
precious natural resource.
Our one-year Water Leaders program gets you out of the
office and into the field – whether it’s on one of our water
tours to the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta or the lower
Colorado River, or meeting with your assigned mentor.
Mentors play an important role in the program as they conduct a
shadow day with class members and help to shape ideas for the
class project on a key water
topic. The project is turned into a report with policy
recommendations that is presented to the Water Education
Foundation’s Board of Directors toward the end of the year.
Just because El Niño may be lurking
off in the tropical Pacific, does that really offer much of a
clue about what kind of rainy season California can expect in
Water Year 2019?
Will a river of storms pound the state, swelling streams and
packing the mountains with deep layers of heavy snow much like
the exceptionally wet 2017 Water Year (Oct. 1, 2016 to Sept. 30,
2017)? Or will this winter sputter along like last winter,
leaving California with a second dry year and the possibility of
another potential drought? What can reliably be said about the
prospects for Water Year 2019?
At Water Year
2019: Feast or Famine?, a one-day event on Dec. 5 in Irvine,
water managers and anyone else interested in this topic will
learn about what is and isn’t known about forecasting
California’s winter precipitation weeks to months ahead, the
skill of present forecasts and ongoing research to develop
predictive ability.
A few tickets are still available
for our Nov. 7-8 San Joaquin River
Restoration Tour, a rare opportunity to see firsthand the
progress toward restoring populations of spawning salmon to the
river.
The San Joaquin River was the focus of one of the most
contentious legal battles in California water history related to
providing in-stream flows for fish, leading to the creation of
the San Joaquin River Restoration Program.
In 1983, a landmark California
Supreme Court ruling forced Los Angeles to reduce its take of
water from Eastern Sierra creeks that fed Mono Lake. It marked a
dramatic shift in California water law by extending the public
trust doctrine to tributary creeks that fed Mono Lake, which is a
navigable water body even though the creeks themselves are
not.
Some 35 years later, an appellate court in Sacramento
for the first time has concluded that the same public trust
doctrine used in the Mono Lake decision also applies to
groundwater feeding the navigable Scott River in a picturesque
corner of far Northern California.
