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There’s a Lawsuit in San Diego That Began in 1951

There is a lawsuit in San Diego County that is as old as “I Love Lucy.” It was filed the same year a disc jockey coined the term “rock ‘n’ roll,” a gallon of gasoline cost 27 cents, and turn signals were still optional in cars.
And it is still being waged in San Diego federal court today.

In 1951, the U.S. government sued thousands of landowners in and around Fallbrook in a move to secure Camp Pendleton’s water rights. It is the oldest, ongoing civil case in the county.

Senator, Residents Critical of State Government

Road safety, government regulations and corruption, high-speed rail, medical marijuana and state-mandated water restrictions were just some of the topics brought up at Sen. Joel Anderson’s community coffee Thursday evening.

The state senator said the money that is being spent on the state’s high-speed rail, which is supposed to run from the Silicon Valley to the Central Valley, would be better spent on new technology for vehicles, road infrastructure or water projects.

Rainbow MWD Approves Strategic Plan

The Rainbow Municipal Water District board approved the district’s strategic plan at the Jan. 26 board meeting.

A 3-0 board vote, with Jack Griffiths abstaining and Bob Lucy having resigned prior to the meeting, adopted the strategic plan.

OPINION: Water, growth and a little history

Last Sunday, I had a column that asked what I thought was a simple question: How much more development can our water supplies sustain?
I figured planners must be looking at this issue considering the drought and new groundwater legislation that requires a holistic attitude toward our basin as opposed to the “I got my straw, go get your own” way we’ve always done things.
Nope.

Even with about 58,000 new homes either in some phase of construction or approved to be built in and around Bakersfield, no one is looking at how all that new demand will affect our aquifer.

Should Desalination Play a Bigger Role in California’s Water Future?

When it comes to finding new sources of drinking water for residents of a coastal state mired in drought, some say desalination gets little respect in Sacramento.

“Desalination should be a priority,” said Assemblywoman Ling Ling Chang, R-Diamond Bar, who introduced a bill last week that would write first-time goals into the state water code for a percentage of drinking water originating from the ocean.

OPINION: Canceling Turf Rebates is Counterintuitive

The Metropolitan Water District, the primary water supplier for nearly 19 million people in Southern California, announced this month that its popular turf replacement rebate program may not be continued next year, even though the program provides visibility for non-traditional water conservation and improves drought awareness. When asked about why the program might be canceled, MWD Water Resource Management manager Deven Upadhyay said, “It was a one-time thing to try to ramp up attention on having more drought-tolerant landscapes while we’re in the drought.”

The rebate program certainly did just that. The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and the MWD teamed up to offer a budget of more than half a billion dollars for conservation to span two years. Many of these programs, like the turf removal rebate, were effective. The funding for the MWD turf removal rebate itself was exhausted in late 2015 due to overwhelming demand. However, the MWD should continue offering rebates for water-wise landscaping in Southern California.

You Can’t Always Get What You Want – A Mick Jagger Theory of Drought Management

“You can’t always get what you want but if you try sometimes you just might find
You get what you need,” Rolling Stones (1969, Let It Bleed album)

The ongoing California drought has many lessons for water managers and policy-makers. Perhaps the greatest lesson is how unimportant a drought can be if we manage water well.

Spaulding, Folsom Lakes Well Above Normal

Fed by gushing runoff, some area reservoirs are filling fast: Lake Spaulding, which provides much of the water for the Auburn area is at 173 percent of normal, and Folsom Lake is at 118 percent.

Given rising levels, water leaders in Placer County rescinded an emergency drought status on Thursday. The Placer County Water Agency (PCWA) lifted the status when emergency conditions ended.

Feds Consider Initial CVP Water Allocation for Farms, Cities

The return of rain and snow to California “could be helpful” to prospects for bringing federal water to farms this year, but officials could still be a couple of weeks from making that determination, a spokesman says.

The Central Valley Project typically makes its initial allocations to cities, farms and other entities in late February, but hydrologists and other officials aren’t ready to predict how much water they’ll be able to deliver this spring and summer, spokesman Louis Moore said.