Aquafornia, the newsfeed of the Water Education Foundation, today published an educational side show on the history of the State Water Project. For those who wonder just how big a challenge to keep California hydrated Governor Jerry Brown inherited on November 2nd, click here to learn about the massive water-moving endeavor that his father, Governor Pat Brown, began in the 1950s.

The beginning of the slide show is straight up California heraldry. Glorification of the Department of Water Resources might seem a bit Soviet to those who never knew a winter without fresh fruit or vegetables. But keep clicking to follow the water. Once you do, the steadfast tracing of the project will equip you to understand news stories also running daily on Aquafornia about the California water bond that we are told we so desperately need but won’t pass, about water banking deals that drain the Bay Delta while enriching a Beverly Hills billionaire, about the energy needed to move water to Southern California, about canals buckling because of subsidence caused by groundwater pumping, about what’s pushing California salmon to extinction — our water withdrawals or Sacramento and Stockton sewage? Aquafornia shows us the dams, reservoirs, canals, pumps and pipes behind our grandeur and fragility.

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