In the final hours of this year’s legislative session, which ended after 2 a.m. Saturday, key immigration and affordable-housing bills passed out of the Legislature, as did a $4 billion parks and water bond, which the governor has said he will sign. It will appear on a June 2018 ballot. A clean energy bill did not get a vote in the Assembly, however, and an Internet privacy bill also remained stuck in committee.
It’s fair to say that public power agencies are taking the state by storm. They are known as community choice aggregators, or CCAs. Dozens of cities across the state are talking about parting ways with their local power companies. Eight other local governments, mostly in Northern California, already have.
A group of San Diego business and civic leaders announced Thursday they have formed a coalition to question a move toward community choice energy, which would allow San Diego’s municipal government to acquire power separately from the local utility. The Clear the Air Coalition includes former Mayor Jerry Sanders, currently president and CEO of the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce, Frank Urtasun of Sempra Energy, and Joe Panetta, who leads the life sciences industry trade group Biocom, among others.
Water agencies across California are preparing to vote on a massive new water project, but unanswered questions remain. Known as WaterFix or the twin tunnels project, it’s designed to ensure that water keeps coming south through the Sacramento-San Joaquin Bay Delta, a series of waterways and wetlands fed by snow melting in the Sierra Nevada mountain range.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has determined that the 60-year-old Whittier Narrows Dam is structurally unsafe and poses a potentially catastrophic risk to the working-class communities along the San Gabriel River floodplain. According to an agency report based on research conducted last year, unusually heavy rains could trigger a premature opening of the dam’s massive spillway.
This week the California Legislature is considering two critical water bills that will reduce water waste and improve drought planning. Senate Bill 606 (Hertzberg/Skinner) and Assembly Bill 1668 (Friedman) deserve the legislature’s full support.
An increasing focus on resiliency and water supply risk is driving investment in water reuse, or reclaimed wastewater solutions. New capacity additions in the U.S. municipal water sector are forecasted to surpass US$21.5 billion from 2017 to 2027, according to a new report from Bluefield Research, U.S. Municipal Water Reuse: Opportunities, Outlook, & Competitive Landscape, 2017-2027.
The city of San Diego is standing by its new water meters despite resident complaints of skyrocketing bills without leaks. “I am absolutely confident that these meters are reading accurately,” said Michael Vogl, the city’s public utilities deputy director, who oversees water billing. Families from Mountain View to Scripps Ranch have contacted 10News to complain of the high bills, some doubling or tripling to more than $1,000. They say they’ve never had bills that high and that they or their plumbers haven’t found a leak. So many have concluded that the city’s water meters are off.
The U.S. and Mexican governments are close to signing a landmark Colorado River deal that will establish rules for sharing water over the next decade and lay out cooperative efforts intended to head off severe shortages. Mexican and American officials have scheduled a signing ceremony on Sept. 26 in Ciudad Juárez, officials at California water districts said this week. They said that formal event will be followed by a ceremonial signing in Santa Fe, New Mexico, on Sept. 27 attended by representatives from U.S. states.
