Facing the challenges of sustainably managing and sharing water,
our most precious natural resource, requires collaboration,
education and outreach. Since 1977, the Water Education
Foundation has put water resource issues in California and the
West in context to inspire a deep understanding of and
appreciation for water.
Taking a steady pulse of the water world, the Foundation offers
educational materials, tours of key watersheds, water news, water
leadership training and conferences that bring together diverse
voices. By providing tools and platforms for engagement with wide
audiences, we aim to help build sound and collective solutions to
water issues.
What We Do
We support and execute a wide variety of programming to build a
better understanding of water resources across the West,
including:
Mission: The mission of the Water Education
Foundation, an impartial nonprofit, is to inspire understanding
of water and catalyze critical conversations to build bridges and
inform collaborative decision-making
Vision: A society that has the ability to
resolve its water challenges to benefit all
Where We Work
Our office is located in Sacramento, CA.
Connect with Us!
Sign up here to get email announcements
about upcoming workshops, tours and new publications.
You can learn more about the daily comings and goings of the
Foundation by following @WaterEdFdn on Twitter,
liking us on Facebook or
following us on
LinkedIn.
Time is running out to register for next week’s Water
101 Workshop and go beyond recent national headlines
to gain a deeper understanding of how water is managed and moved
across California. Plus, only a handful of spots remain for the
opportunity to extend your ‘beyond the headlines’ water education
experience on our Central Valley
Tour! And come one, come all to our annual Open
House & Reception on May 1.
Go beyond the stream of recent
national headlines and gain a deeper understanding of how water
is managed and moved across California during our Water
101 Workshop on April 10.
One of our most popular events, the daylong workshop at
McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento offers anyone new to
California water issues or newly elected to a water district
board — and really anyone who wants a refresher — a chance to
gain a solid statewide grounding on the state’s water
resources.
Some of state’s leading policy and legal experts are on the
agenda for the workshop that details
the historical, legal and political facets of water management in
the state.
Alfred E. Smith II, a Southern
California water law attorney and an alumnus of the Water
Education Foundation’s Water Leaders program, has been elected
president of the Foundation’s board of directors.
As chair of Nossaman LLP’s Water Group and a partner in the
firm’s Los Angeles office, Smith
serves as general counsel to several Southern California water
districts and represents clients on water rights, groundwater
adjudications, water contamination litigation and remediation
matters.
The workshop, April 10 in Sacramento, is among the events, tours and publications the Water Education Foundation offers to help you get beyond the stream of recent national headlines and better understand how water is managed and moved across the Golden State:
Go beyond the recent headlines and gain a deeper understanding of how water flows across California during our Water 101 Workshop on April 10. If you join our Central Valley Tour happening April 23-25, you can stand atop Terminus Dam where the federal government released water from Lake Kaweah in late January.
The Water Education Foundation, which celebrated its 48th birthday this week, is proud to be the only organization in California providing comprehensive, unbiased information about the most critical resource across the West. We provide myriad resources to help put issues in context and to inspire a deep understanding of and appreciation for water, including educational materials, tours of key watersheds, water news, water leadership training and events that bring together diverse voices.
A new aquatic invader, the golden mussel, has penetrated California’s ecologically fragile Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, the West Coast’s largest tidal estuary and the hub of the state’s vast water export system. While state officials say they’re working to keep this latest invasive species in check, they concede it may be a nearly impossible task: The golden mussel is in the Golden State to stay – and it is likely to spread.
Register today for the return
of our Bay-Delta
Tour May 7-9 as we venture into the most critical
and controversial water region in California. Get a firsthand
look at the state’s vital water hub and hear directly from
experts on key issues affecting the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta
and San Francisco Bay.
The 720,000-acre network of islands and channels supports
the state’s two large water systems – the State Water Project and
the federal Central Valley Project – and together with the San
Francisco Bay is an important ecological resource. You’ll learn
firsthand how the drought is affecting water quality and supply
that serves local farms, cities and habitat. Much of
the water also heads south via canals and aqueducts to provide
drinking water for more than 27 million Californians and
irrigation to about 3 million acres of farmland that helps feed
the nation.
Gain a deeper understanding of
water in California by attending our annual Water 101
Workshop in April as experts go over the
history, hydrology and law behind the state’s most precious
natural resource.
But you don’t have to wait until the workshop at McGeorge
School of Law in Sacramento to get up to speed on important water
issues.
Updated and redesigned, the 21-page overview comes as cities in
California and Arizona significantly expand and upgrade their
wastewater recycling facilities as a strategic defense against
extended droughts and climate change.
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.
Happy New Year to all the friends, supporters, readers and participants of the tours, articles and workshops we featured in 2024! We’re grateful to each and every person who engaged with us last year.
As we turn the page to 2025, one of our most exciting projects will be a first-ever Klamath River Basin Tour in September. We’ll visit some of the sites where four dams came down along the river’s mainstem, and talk to tribes and farmers in the region and learn from scientists watching the river’s restoration unfold.
While most of our tours span three days, this one will likely stretch to four or possibly five days to accommodate the time to get to this remote watershed straddling the California/Oregon border. Stay tuned for more details!
Our array of 2025 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.
In March, we return to the Southwest’s most important river with our Lower Colorado River Tour, and the bus is quickly filling up! We then journey across the San Joaquin Valley on our Central Valley Tour in April and take a deep dive into California’s water hub in May with our signature Bay-Delta Tour.
In case you missed it, registration for our first water tour of
2025 along the Colorado River opened last week and the bus is
filling up quickly! Seating is limited, so reserve your spot soon
while tickets last.
Lower Colorado River Tour: March 12-14
Don’t miss the return of our annual
Lower
Colorado River Tour as we take you from Hoover
Dam to the U.S.-Mexico border and through the Imperial and
Coachella valleys to learn about the challenges and opportunities
facing the “Lifeline of the Southwest.” Experts discuss river
issues such as water needs, drought management, endangered
species and habitat restoration. Get more tour
details and register here!
The Water Education Foundation has a full-time opening for an
experienced, energetic and motivated News & Publications Director
who can elevate our online and print publications with sharp
editing, innovative storytelling and a passion for clearly
explaining the complexities and nuances of water resource issues.
We are looking for a veteran journalist who is a strong editor
with fluency in digital media (including website management and
social media). This position oversees our staff writer and is
responsible for producing articles examining water issues in
California and the Colorado River Basin, managing our weekday
water news feed and posting breaking news and other news on
social media, among other tasks.
Our 2024 California Water
Leaders cohort completed its year with a report on its
policy recommendations for ensuring the state’s over-pumped
groundwater basins reach sustainability under the
Sustainable Groundwater Management Act.
The landmark law known as SGMA turned 10 in 2024 as many of the
state’s sustainability plans were moving into implementation. The
goal is for those basins to become sustainable by 2040 or 2042.
The Water Leaders cohort of 20 up-and-coming
leaders – engineers, attorneys, planners, scientists,
water managers and other professionals from water-related
organizations – worked collaboratively and had full
editorial control on the report.
The Foundation’s 2025 programming calendar begins in just a
few months and is packed with engaging tours, workshops and
conferences on key water topics in California and across the
West. Seating is limited and tickets go quickly for all our
programs, so mark your calendar now so you don’t miss out!
Current Foundation member organizations receive access to
coveted sponsorships opportunities for our tours and
events, which are all prime networking opportunities for
the water professionals in attendance! Contact
Nick Gray for more information.
Lower Colorado River Tour: March 12-14
Be sure to catch the return of our
annual Lower Colorado
River Tour as we take you from Hoover Dam to
the U.S.-Mexico border and through the Imperial and
Coachella valleys to learn about the challenges and opportunities
facing the “Lifeline of the Southwest.”
Following the river as it winds through Nevada, Arizona and
California, the tour explores infrastructure, farming
regions, wildlife refuges and the Salton Sea. Experts discuss
river issues, such as water needs, drought management, endangered
species and habitat restoration. Get more tour
details and register here!
Since 1977, the Water Education
Foundation has worked to inspire better understanding
and catalyze critical conversations about our most vital
natural resource: water.
This is not a mission our impartial nonprofit can carry out
alone.
Today on Giving Tuesday, a global day of philanthropy, please
consider making a
tax-deductible donation to support the important
work we do to provide impartial education and foster informed
decision-making on water issues in California and the West.
Today on Giving Tuesday, a global
day of philanthropy, you can support impartial education and
informed decision-making on water resources in California and the
West by making a
tax-deductible donation to the Water Education
Foundation.
Your support ensures that our legacy of producing in-depth news,
educational workshops and accessible and
reliable information on water reaches new heights in 2025.
The beautifully designed book is a
treasure trove of gorgeous color photos, water literature and
famous sayings about water. It discusses the engineering feats,
political decisions and popular sentiment that led to
the water projects that helped make California the economic
powerhouse 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.
As we wrap up our year at the Water Education Foundation, we
are busy looking ahead to our 2025 slate of engaging
tours, workshops and conferences on key water topics in
California and across the West. Make sure to save the dates
below!
Meanwhile, as we approach the holidays, we want to remind
everyone:
We will soon announce a holiday sale of our
popular maps and guides on key water
regions and topics so you can get gifts for the water
wonk in your life. Stay tuned!
Giving
Tuesday is right after Thanksgiving
and a national day to support nonprofits. We’ll be sure to
let you know how to support water education in the West on that
day.
If you are an
up-and-coming leader in the water world who is thinking
about applying for our 2025 California Water Leaders
cohort, you can view a virtual Q&A
sessionto get tips on applying for the
competitive program.
During the session, Jenn Bowles, our executive director, and
other Water Education Foundation team members provided an
overview of the program and gave advice on submitting an
application by Dec. 5, 2024.
The Water Education Foundation’s tours offer participants a
first-hand look at the water facilities, rivers and regions
critical in the debate about the future of water resources.
From recent news articles to publications, maps and tours, Water
Education Foundation has everything you need, including the
award-winning Layperson’s Guide to the Delta.
