Announcements

Our water tours give a behind-the-scenes look at major water issues in California. On our Central Valley Tour, March 8-10, you will visit wildlife habitat areas – some of which are closed to the public – and learn directly from the experts who manage them, in addition to seeing farms, large dams and other infrastructure.

Tickets are now on sale for the Water Education Foundation’s April 5-7 tour of the Lower Colorado River.

Don’t miss this opportunity to visit key sites along the “Lifeblood of the Southwest,” including a private tour of Hoover Dam, Central Arizona Project’s Mark Wilmer pumping plant and the Havasu National Wildlife Refuge. The tour also visits the Salton Sea and farming regions in the Imperial and Coachella valleys.

Sixteen years of drought on the Colorado River, a key water supply for California, have increased the chance that Lake Mead will fall low enough to trigger a shortage declaration in the not-too-distant future. It seems a matter of when and not if. The reservoir now sits at 40 percent capacity and federal officials say there is a 48 percent chance of a shortage declaration in 2018.

Last year, representatives from the federal government, California and the other Lower Basin states, and Mexico came close to an interlinked, multi-party agreement on how to slow the reservoir’s decline to better prepare for a reduction in water supplies. They failed to finalize a drought contingency plan before the end of the Obama administration, leaving stakeholders wondering what will happen now.

Data, data everywhere but what to do with it all? Water wonks have long known there are reams of information about water available from a multitude of sources. Databases contain information about water supply, water quality, water rights and other issues. But the information is scattered and not easily accessible.

Now, a new state law aims to corral all the dates, places and numbers into a useful platform that is expected to make California’s water management system more effective.

The recent deluge has led to changes in drought conditions in some areas of California and even public scrutiny of the possibility that the drought is over. Many eyes are focused on the San Joaquin Valley, one of the areas hardest hit by reduced surface water supplies. On our Central Valley Tour, March 8-10, we will visit key water delivery and storage sites in the San Joaquin Valley, including Friant Dam and Millerton Lake on the San Joaquin River.

Finding new sources of water for the future and implementing the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act are two of the key topics to be addressed at this year’s Executive Briefing, the Water Education Foundation’s flagship conference of the year.

The 34th annual event, “Wave of Change: Breaking the Status Quo,” will feature key speakers and top experts in their fields. The Briefing will be March 23 at a new location this year – the Hilton Sacramento Arden West hotel, 2200 Harvard Street in Sacramento.

Dependence on the Colorado River as a water supply source has been shaken by 16 years of drought that have rewritten the rules for managing water. In the Lower Basin, water users are grappling with the potential of a shortage that would reduce annual allocations.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. _ Bob Johnson, a former commissioner of the Bureau of Reclamation, was elected president of the Water Education Foundation’s board of directors, taking the helm as the organization marks its 40th anniversary in 2017.

Johnson replaces Bill Mills, who had been president since 2007 and will remain on the board as a director. Mills is a water consultant who was general manager of the Orange County Water District from 1987 to 2002.