You are now in San Diego County category.

Call It The Anti-Drought: Water Officials Hope to Drive Up Water Usage

/in /by /Voice Of San Diegoby Ry Rivard Mentioned: San Diego County Water Authority

In a jarring contrast to conditions during the drought, the San Diego County Water Authority is actually trying to drive up demand for its water. As recently as the first months of this year, Californians were asked to conserve water. Well, they did. And they still are. Now, that’s a problem. Demand for water is low. In San Diego, it’s so low that drinking water is just sitting in the main pipeline that delivers water from hundreds of miles away to the southern half of the county. Typically demand for water is highest during the summer.

Full Story

OPINION: Save Water, Save Energy, Save California

/in /by /Los Angeles Times

California’s lengthy drought has prompted state, regional and local officials to take a series of steps in recent years to restrict water use. One of the first measures lawmakers adopted was an urban conservation plan to ensure that future consumption in California’s cities would not outstrip a dwindling supply. Modeled on tough goals that had been passed to reduce energy use and limit the release of greenhouse gasses, the 20 x 2020 Water Conservation Plan aims for a 20% per capita reduction by 2020.

Full Story

California Legislative Leaders Pitch Big Spending For Water And Parks Improvements For The 2018 Ballot

/in /by /Los Angeles Timesby Liam Dillon

Top lawmakers promised Wednesday to put a bond measure on the 2018 statewide ballot to fund parks and water improvements. “More parks is not just a wish, it’s not just a dream, it’s not just an ideal, it is a real need,” Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon (D-Paramount) said at a rally outside the Capitol. “We see that all over the state.”

Full Story

Proposed Lake Elsinore Hydroelectric Project Generates Antipathy From Supervisors

/in /by /The Press-Enterprise (Riverside)by Michael Williams

Local and regional officials appear intent on driving a stake through the heart of a plan to build a hydroelectric power system with components in the Santa Ana Mountains, Lakeland Village and Lake Elsinore. The Riverside County Board of Supervisors this week joined the city of Lake Elsinore and the Elsinore Valley Municipal Water District in condemning the resurrection of the Vista-based firm Nevada Hydro‘s application for the Lake Elsinore Advanced Pumped Storage project with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

Full Story

Drinking Lead: Why California May Force All Schools To Test Their Water

/in /by /The Desert Sun (Palm Springs)by Elizabeth Aguilera

When a therapy dog refused to drink at a San Diego grade school, it was the first clue that something was wrong with the water. Tests revealed why the pup turned up its nose — the presence of polyvinyl chloride, the polymer in PVC pipes that degrade over time. But further analysis found something else that had gone undetected by the dog, the teachers and students of the San Diego Cooperative Charter School, and the school district: elevated levels of lead.

Full Story

Placer Water Joins Delta Tunnel Legal Wrangle

/in /by /Auburn Journal

Placer County Water Agency is taking the state of California to court over its twin tunnels plan. The state Department of Water Resources approval of the plan’s environmental impact report touched off a flurry of court challenges on grounds that it would negatively impact water quality in the Delta and San Francisco Bay while threatening salmon and other fish populations.

Full Story

Central Basin Water Board, LA City Council Committee Delay Delta Tunnels Vote

/in /by /Elk Grove Newsby Dan Bacher
On August 28, the Central Basin Water Agency board in Compton voted 5 to 2 to postpone a decision supporting the controversial Delta Tunnels plan, a joint public works project between the Governor Jerry Brown and President Donald Trump administration. “Citing the many unknowns regarding the rate impacts of the project, estimated to cost $25 billion, the Central Basin board members said they needed more information on how it would affect ratepayers in southeast Los Angeles County,” said Brenna Norton, senior Southern California organizer for Food  & Water Watch.
Full Story

Pact To Boost Water Level In Lake Mead OK’d

/in /by /Boulder City Reviewby Henry Brean

The Southern Nevada Water Authority plans to spend up to $7.5 million in Mexico over the next 10 years in exchange for more Colorado River water. Authority board members unanimously approved the payments Aug. 17 as they gave their blessing to a sweeping water-sharing agreement the U.S. and Mexico are expected to sign next month.

 

Full Story

Environmentalist Seeks To Rally Support For Bill Blocking Water Transfer

/in /by /San Bernardino County Sunby Jim Steinberg

As yellow jackets and bees darted above, an environmentalist asked those interested in preserving the eastern Mojave to call elected officials in support of a bill that would block a controversial plan to sell groundwater. “This is a way for Californians to say they are not going to allow the Trump Administration to force destructive projects on the state without environmental review,” Chris Clarke, California Desert program manager of the National Parks Conservation Association, told 35 people gathered Tuesday night near the front porch of the Pioneertown Mountains Preserve Ranger Station.

Full Story

Those Green, Wet Spots On Oroville Dam Aren’t Worrisome, State Insists

/in /by /The Sacramento Beeby Ryan Sabalow

State dam operators have issued a new report that refutes troubling allegations raised by a catastrophic engineering expert who contends Oroville Dam may be dangerously leaking. On Wednesday, the Department of Water Resources reiterated what state dam managers have insisted for months: that the public is in no risk from the persistent green wet spots near the top left abutment of the nearly 770-foot-tall earthen dam. The report says they’re nothing more than natural vegetation growth caused by rainfall that becomes “temporarily trapped” inside the dam’s outer-most layer and then seeps out.

Full Story