It was a great exam question (at least I thought so – you’ll have to ask my Environmental Law and Policy students if they agree): Does the disposal of treated wastewater from a municipal wastewater treatment plant into the ground through injection wells located a short distance from the ocean require a National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit under the Clean Water Act?
Last week, the California Department of Water Resources officially announced it would seek to build a single tunnel, but now the Metropolitan Water Agency of Southern California could change that. The Sacramento Bee reported that Metropolitan, the largest public water agency in the state, was contemplating a plan to fund a significant portion of California WaterFix. It was just a week ago that the state decided to scale back the project – a two-tunnel conveyance with a price tag of $17 billion.
Although California water watchers let their guard down after last winter’s deluge of hydration, the San Jose Mercury News published a reminder this week that the state’s drought is probably not over. In fact, it may turn out to be a decade-plus affair. The Mercury News quoted Heather Cooley of the Oakland non-profit Pacific Institute (which keeps tabs on water use) cautioning prudence at the tap:
Smart water meters, or meters that can relay your water-use wirelessly, are the future. Officials say the new meters can help customers conserve and even send alerts when waterline leaks are detected but installing the technology is critical to its success. Water billing was brought up at Thursday night’s public forum, hosted by Councilmember Chris Cate, where hundreds of homeowners who had questions about their water bills attended. “Every single time the water bill will come,” one homeowner said, “I will open it and I will be like, what is going on?”
Cloud seeding has become big business worldwide as a means to boost water supplies. Utilities and governments spend tens of millions of dollars on the process, which is especially common in Western states that rely on winter snowpack to meet year-round water demand. The basic process involves spraying silver iodide from a plane as it flies through storm clouds. The silver iodide induces moisture in the cloud to form ice crystals, which then (hopefully) fall out as snow. Some studies have estimated cloud seeding can boost snowfall by between 8 and 15 percent.
The audit of the city utilities department’s water billing procedures is being fast-tracked and expanded, Mayor Kevin Faulconer announced Thursday, as officials seek more answers about how 343 residents were overcharged by as much as $420 due to one employee’s misreading of water meters. Residents began raising questions about their bills with city officials at the start of the year and, disappointed with the response, many went to local media in an effort to get more thorough answers. Some were told by the Public Utilities Department that there was nothing erroneous about their bills.
Hundreds of frustrated and angry residents turned out Thursday night for a city-held public forum at Mira Mesa Senior Center to address surging water bills — a long-simmering controversy that has now reached a boiling point. For more than three hours, one resident after another stepped to the microphone to address officials with the Public Utilities Department. Nearly all had stories of being charged for water they didn’t use, causing their bills to skyrocket by hundreds, sometimes thousands of dollars.
As water levels in Lake Powell and Lake Mead drop, the potential for restrictions on water use in 2019 rise, but not for all Colorado River water users. Under the 2007 drought plan guidelines Arizona adopted, Central Arizona Project will take the full hit for whatever that reduction is, said Mark Clark, Mohave Valley Irrigation and Drainage District manager. CAP’s hit, Clark said, is about 349,000 acre-feet of water. “The local folk here along the river really won’t see any change due to a shortage declaration at a tier one level,” Clark explained.
As I have previously written, Los Angeles and its DWP pays to import most of our water from Metropolitan Water District sources. This is in addition to the water we obtain from the Owens Valley aqueduct, which is owned by the DWP (and was the subject of the movie Chinatown). After last year’s record precipitation, most of my friends thought that the drought was over and became uninterested in the Delta Tunnels “WaterFix” project.
A radical change in scope for the California WaterFix project has tunnels opponents calling for the state to scrap the permit approval and begin anew. In a memo dated Feb. 7, Karla Nemeth, director of the DWR, announced that WaterFix will be developed in two stages. The first stage will include a single tunnel and two intakes with a capacity of 6,000 cubic feet per second (cfs). The second phase will add another tunnel and a third intake expanding the capacity to 9,000 cfs.
