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Three Reasons Why Water Markets May Be Damaging the West’s Rivers

/in /by /Water Deeply (New York)by Gary Wockner

I’ve just returned from Ecuador, which is famous among environmentalists across the world because it has “rights of nature” enshrined in its national constitution. Ecuador is the only country in the world to have such a constitutional provision which allows for nature to be a “plaintiff” in a court of law. Further, Ecuadorian activists are very excited that the national parliament has passed a new law to allow citizens to sue the government and corporations for environmental harms.

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Who Pays For Oroville Dam Spillway Repairs?

/in /by /Chico Enterprise-Recordby Heather Hacking

Work is underway right now at the Oroville Dam spillway, but many questions remain. How much will it cost? Will repairs be complete in time for the rainy season? Will life under the shadow of the dam return to normal?The best answer is that it’s a work in progress. So far, an estimate for repairs has reached $500 million, said Erin Mellon, communications and outreach adviser for the state Natural Resources Agency. The hope is that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) will help pay for 75 percent of eligible emergency response and repairs, Mellon said.

 

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Water Authority Floats a Radical Idea In Strange Public Poll

/in /by /Voice of San Diego Quoted: Dennis Cushman, Mike Lee

The San Diego County Water Authority is floating a radical idea to upend how 19 million Southern Californians get their water. The agency paid for a poll last month that asked voters whether they would support the state seizing control of water supplies across the region, including much of the water used in San Diego. The $31,000 poll is part of an aggressive $220,000 campaign the Water Authority is waging against another public water agency, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California.

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Snowmelt Not Enough To Chill Tahoe

/in /by /The Record-Courier (Gardnerville, Nev.)by Claire Cudahy

The more snow melting into Lake Tahoe the colder the water will be this summer, right? Wrong. Though it might seem logical that the large amount of snow melting into the lake would affect its temperature, according to Geoff Schladow, director at UC Davis Tahoe Environmental Research Center, that isn’t the case. “Even in the really wet winter that we had, less than 1 percent of the water in the lake changes because of all this rain and snow,” explained Schladow. “Most of that water has been there for hundreds of years.”

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Wildfires On The Rise Due To Drought And Climate Change

/in /by /CBS Newsby Steve Inskeep

Fighting wildfires in America cost federal agencies almost $2 billion last year including more than half the budget of the U.S. Forest Service. Wildland fires are growing worse in a time of drought and climate change, and the biggest and most destructive fires can’t be stopped. They are a force of nature: imagine trying to stop a hurricane. Yet the government has to try, because more than a 100 million Americans now live in — or near — forests and grasslands that can erupt in flames. This is what’s left of a neighborhood in the Kern River Valley.

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Coronado Couple Win “WaterSmart Landscape Contest”

/in /by /The Coronado Timesby Coree Cornelius Mentioned: San Diego County Water Authority

In March of 2017, California American Water announced its new Sustainable Landscapes Program in which it encouraged customers of California American Water who are residents of the San Diego region to “take a watershed approach to landscaping their yards.” Partnering with the San Diego County Water Authority, the City of San Diego, County of San Diego, Surfrider Foundation, and the Association of Compost Producers, the mission of the new program set out to be “the go-to resource to assist San Diego County residents in adopting sustainable landscaping best practices through education and training, technical assistance, landscaping materials and financial incentives.”

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Letter to the Editor: Water Board Members Compensated Fairly

/in /by /The San Diego Union-Tribuneby Mark Hattam

The U-T’s print-edition version of a story (“Attorney: Agency’s meetings must be open,” May 18) omitted critical context that may give readers a false impression about compensation for San Diego County Water Authority Board members. The online version of the story said directors on the agency’s 36-member Board were collectively paid more than $80,000 in per diems for participating in certain agency meetings in 2016. The word “collectively” was not in the print version, leaving some readers to erroneously believe that individual board members collected more than $80,000 annually.

Water Officials To Test Repairs At San Diego School After Elevated Lead Levels Found

/in /by /KPBS

City of San Diego officials are scheduled to test the water at Birney Elementary School in University Heights on Friday to determine if repairs successfully cleared contaminants from the plumbing system. Birney is one of two San Diego Unified School District campuses where elevated levels of lead were discovered in the water. Officials with the city’s Public Utilities Department told the City Council’s Environment Committee that while the city is testing for contaminants, school districts are responsible for making repairs.

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Water Rates Already Among Highest Nationwide To Rise In San Diego County

/in /by /NBC San Diegoby Gene Cubbison Mentioned: San Diego County Water Authority

Water rates in San Diego County, which are already among the highest in the country, are about to go up again. A typical household here pays more than twice the national average, according to the County Water Authority. While the average American family pays less than $40 a month, local residents pay about $80. Next year’s rates increase by the County Water Authority will be nearly four percent both for treated and untreated water. This marks the lowest increase in five years.

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Federal Water Agency, In Course Correction, Courts Private Investment

/in /by /Circle Of Blue (Traverse City, Mich.)by Brett Walton

In early May, Bureau of Reclamation officials gathered the world’s top builders and bankers for a meeting at the Sheraton West hotel conference room in Lakewood, Colorado, a Denver suburb that abuts Rocky Mountain foothills. Reclamation faces a conundrum. The assets of the federal agency that operates many of the largest dams and canals in the American West are aging. Maintenance costs are rising. Rural water supply systems and other projects authorized by Congress decades ago are tens of billions of dollars away from completion.

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