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Twenty early to mid-career water professionals from across California have been chosen for the 2022 William R. Gianelli Water Leaders Class, the Water Education Foundation’s highly competitive and respected career development program.

This Water Leaders class, which marks the program’s 25th anniversary, includes engineers, lawyers, resource specialists, scientists and others from a range of public and private entities and nongovernmental organizations from throughout the state. The roster for the 2022 class can be found here.

Grab your ticket now for the return of our in-person Lower Colorado River Tour March 16-18!

In the centennial year of the 1922 Colorado River Compact that established a framework for management of the river, the tour will take participants from Hoover Dam downstream to the Mexican border and through the Imperial and Coachella valleys to learn firsthand about the challenges and opportunities now facing the “Lifeline of the Southwest” a hundred years later.

For more than 20 years, Tanya Trujillo has been immersed in the many challenges of the Colorado River, the drought-stressed lifeline for 40 million people from Denver to Los Angeles and the source of irrigation water for more than 5 million acres of winter lettuce, supermarket melons and other crops.

Trujillo has experience working in both the Upper and Lower Basins of the Colorado River, basins that split the river’s water evenly but are sometimes at odds with each other. She was a lawyer for the state of New Mexico, one of four states in the Upper Colorado River Basin, when key operating guidelines for sharing shortages on the river were negotiated in 2007. She later worked as executive director for the Colorado River Board of California, exposing her to the different perspectives and challenges facing California and the other states in the river’s Lower Basin.

Apply by Dec. 7 for our 2022 Water Leaders class and be part of the cohort that will mark the 25th anniversary of California’s pre-eminent water leadership program.

The Water Leaders class, which started in 1997, is aimed at providing a deeper understanding of California water issues and building leadership skills by working with a mentor, studying a water-related topic in-depth and crafting policy recommendations on that topic with your cohort.

The deadline to apply for the 2022 class is Dec. 7 at 5 p.m. Find the online application form and other required items for your application package here.

Register today for our Water Summit, hosted this year as an engaging virtual experience on the afternoon of Oct. 28, to hear a variety of perspectives detailing the on-the-ground impacts of the the current drought in California.

Register now for next week’s virtual Northern California Tour on Oct. 14 to explore the Sacramento River and its tributaries and learn about issues associated with a key source for the state’s water supply, including the drought now gripping California.

During the afternoon online event, you’ll visit rice farms and wetlands in the Sacramento Valley and hear from farmers and environmentalists about efforts to restore runs of endangered chinook salmon and help birds along the Pacific Flyway. You’ll also get up close to Oroville Dam, a key component of the State Water Project, and learn how its two spillways were repaired following a catastrophic 2017 storm, and visit other major infrastructure such as Shasta Dam, part of the federal Central Valley Project. In addition, you’ll visit the area being eyed for the proposed Sites Reservoir. Seating on the virtual “tour bus” is limited, so get your ticket here.