A new nationwide study has unearthed the huge hidden potential of tapping into salty aquifers as a way to relieve the growing pressure on freshwater supplies across the United States. Digging into data from the country’s 60 major aquifers, the U.S. Geological Survey reports that the amount of brackish – or slightly salty – groundwater is more than 35 times the amount of fresh groundwater used in the United States each year.
While California is breathing a sigh of relief and rightfully celebrating an epic water year, efforts in Sacramento threaten to make seismic changes in the way our water has been managed in the Coachella Valley and across the state. Last week, the governor released a report outlining steps for long-term water conservation by residential and business water users. The Coachella Valley Water District worked alongside state agencies to provide input into that framework – we wanted to ensure that the unique circumstances of our community were reflected in the proposed legislation.
Members of the San Diego County Water Authority met behind closed doors more than 100 times last year — four times as often as they met in public. State law limits the scope and frequency of such unnoticed, unrecorded meetings so as to prevent officials from hiding their activities from the public, which pays for them. Yet payroll documents, the only records available to describe the get-togethers, show three groups of authority board members met behind closed doors on a monthly basis in 2016.
Mayor Kevin Faulconer’s proposal to spend significantly less clearing clogged drainage channels has raised concerns about higher flood risk in San Diego, but Faulconer’s staff says there’s no reason to worry. The city can prudently spend as much as $1.4 million less on clearing flood channels during the fiscal year that begins July 1 because staff has become more efficient at obtaining environmental permits and completing the work, said Kris McFadden, director of the city’s Transportation and Storm Water Department.
Hoping to boost water supplies during future droughts, Silicon Valley’s largest water provider is working on a plan to build a new $800 million dam and reservoir in the remote hills of eastern Santa Clara County, just off Pacheco Pass. The idea, still in the early stages, could result in the construction of one of the largest reservoirs in the Bay Area — a lake that would be twice the size of Crystal Springs Reservoir along Interstate 280 in San Mateo County — and the first new reservoir built in Santa Clara County since 1957, when Uvas Reservoir near Morgan Hill opened.
Federal officials have concluded that infrastructure for a proposed hydropower project — which would tap billions of gallons of groundwater in the California desert, just outside Joshua Tree National Park — wouldn’t be especially harmful to the environment. The Bureau of Land Management issued a “finding of no significant impact” Thursday for power lines and water pipelines that would enable Eagle Crest Energy Company to build a massive hydroelectric power plant in the Eagle Mountain area, which is surrounded on three sides by the national park. That finding clears the way for the agency to approve the project infrastructure in a few months, after a final protest period.
In April 2015, the City of Manhattan Beach made a sudden announcement that shook the twin pastoral pillars of suburbia, the automobile and lawn. Effective immediately, residents could not wash their cars at home, and instead had to take them to a commercial car wash. Watering lawns was permitted only on one designated day a week, and had to be done by hand or with sprinklers, not a hose.
As one of the wettest California winters in memory nears its end, the state’s major reservoirs are all essentially full or well above their historical average levels. It’s good news for everyone and everything that depends on water, especially after several years of reduced allocations for farmers and huge losses for salmon, which were frequently unable to spawn successfully for lack of cold water. In spite of their replenished supplies, the glass is still half empty for many farmers and urban water districts.
A question that’s long been asked about California American Water’s proposed desalination plant – and which is brought up in several letters commenting on the project’s environmental impact report – is exactly how big it should be. What’s surprising is that, in a year as wet as this one, the plant wouldn’t even be necessary. Pure Water Monterey, a recycled water project launched by the Monterey Regional Water Pollution Control Agency and the Monterey Peninsula Water Management District, will deliver 3,500 acre-feet of water annually to the Monterey Peninsula beginning in 2018.
New lead testing results at Vista Unified School District schools show that a faucet, used for food preparation at one elementary school, has tested positive for lead. The faucet, located at Grapevine Elementary School in Vista, at 630 Grapevine Road, is located in the kitchen. Of the 29 schools tested in the school district, 22 schools passed the lead test. Tests at six schools are still pending. The district is taking advantage of a state program to pay for the testing at its schools.
The Water News Network is San Diego County’s source for water news and information.
