You are now in San Diego County category.

Officials Find Unsafe Lead Levels In Water At Clairemont Mesa French School

A French language immersion school in Clairemont Mesa became the fourth campus in San Diego where water was found to have unsafe levels of lead, city officials said Thursday. At a meeting of the City Council’s Environment Committee, officials with the Public Utilities Department said La Petite Ecole was one of numerous schools to ask the city for testing. Unsafe levels of lead were previously discovered at three San Diego Unified School District Schools — Birney Elementary School in University Heights, Emerson-Bandini Elementary School and San Diego Cooperative Charter. The latter two share a campus in Southcrest.

San Diego Water Issues RFP For 500 MW Pumped Hydro Storage Project

The San Diego County Water Authority issued a request for interest for the proposed pumped storage project in January that drew 18 respondents. The respondents included five full-service entities offering to finance, design, permit, build, and operate the project, as well as responses from two developers, five off-takers, and six parties interested in building the project, providing equipment for the project, or serving as a consultant for engineering, procurement, and construction services. SDCWA said in a release that the responses confirmed that the project would be a valuable resource helping integrate more variable generation and providing other grid support services.

BLOG: Clean Water Plan For Long-Suffering San Joaquin Valley Towns Derailed

Fresh Sierra mountain snowmelt would make a better drink of water for rural Tulare County folk who currently rely on wells tainted by fertilizers, leaky septic systems and decades-old pesticide residues. Nobody argues with that here in California’s San Joaquin Valley. The problem is obtaining even a tiny fraction of the average 1.7 million acre-feet of Kings River snowmelt that heads mostly to farm fields each year. Even after securing the water, millions of dollars would be needed for a treatment plant, which is required for surface water.

Critics Blast House Republicans’ California Water Grab

A decades-old effort to restore water and salmon to California’s second largest river is on the chopping block under a proposal by House Republicans to speed up dam projects and increase diversions to farmers. The legislation would override federal and state restoration projects on the San Joaquin River as well as allow for increased pumping of California’s vital water source, the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.  It would limit safeguards for Chinook salmon and other species protected by the Environmental Species Act and diminish water deliveries to wildlife refuges during drought periods.

Engineering Expert Blasts Management Failures At Oroville Dam

State water resources officials and federal regulators caused the failure of the Oroville Dam spillway in February by ignoring long-established guidelines and neglecting their duty to manage risks and detect flaws, a scathing report by a Berkeley engineering expert concluded Thursday. Robert Bea, a professor emeritus of engineering at UC Berkeley, said in his analysis of the causes of the spillway failure at the nation’s tallest dam that the “progressive deterioration” of the chute could have been prevented if proper procedures had been followed.

The Drought Is Over. Why Are Republicans In Congress Fighting For More Water For Farmers?

The drought may be over and Central Valley farmers are getting more water than they have in years, but that hasn’t stopped congressional Republicans from resurrecting a bill that would strip environmental protections for fish so more water can be funneled to agriculture. The bill is likely to meet the same fate as others before it, despite farmers having a new ally in the White House and Republican majorities in both houses of Congress.