Michael Grahek trudged through the murk of a historic Los Angeles Department of Water and Power water tunnel, his flashlight sweeping its century-old concrete walls. His light then settled on some a strange outlines in the Sylmar shaft. “Notice the footprints,” said Grahek, LADWP manager of southern aqueduct and Owens Lake Operations and maintenance, pausing inside the arched tunnel. “Somebody stepped in the wet cement almost 100 years ago.”

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.

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.