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Trump Signs Disaster Declaration For Flooded Northern California Counties

/in , /by /San Francisco Chronicleby Rachel Swan

President Trump signed a disaster declaration Saturday for 17 Northern California counties that endured battering rains and landslides this year, making them eligible for federal relief. The move followed three emergency proclamations this year by Gov. Gavin Newsom, who directed Caltrans to seek federal assistance for a string of brutal February storms that doused rural areas across the state, damaging roads and bridges. Newsom described the devastation in a letter to Trump last month in which he asked for the disaster declaration. “The storms caused widespread flash flooding, erosion, mud and debris flows, power outages, and damage to roadways and other critical infrastructure,” Newsom wrote. “In addition to the precipitation, heavy winds uprooted trees, impacting roads and power lines.”

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Olivenhain Municipal Water District Recycled Water Pipelines Named ‘Project of the Year’

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Encinitas, Calif.—American Public Works Association’s San Diego and Imperial Counties Chapter has recognized Olivenhain Municipal Water District’s Avenida La Posta Recycled Water Project as “Project of the Year.” The award, celebrating OMWD’s engineering and project management efforts, was presented yesterday at a reception at Paradise Point Resort in San Diego.

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Siren Songs Of The Salton Sea: Ideas Abound To Fix State’s Largest Lake. But some say It’s Too Late

/in , /by /The Desert Sun (Palm Springs)by Janet Wilson

Wade Crowfoot, California’s new secretary of Natural Resources, remembers the first time he saw the Salton Sea. He was in his early 30s, headed south to visit his cousin in El Centro, when he saw “this huge body of water next to this stunning, stark landscape, with great mountains to the west. It captivated me.” Jeff Geraci’s impressions of California’s largest inland water body are quite different. For 14 years, as the Regional Water Quality Control Board’s senior environmental scientist, he’s coordinated Salton Sea inspections. “The sea is a repository for sewage, industrial and slaughterhouse discharges and agricultural wastewater,” he wrote in an email, describing wading through rotting fish and partially dissolved bird carcasses, all while pesticide-tainted water still pours in.

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Lawmakers Advance Bill To Increase Oversight On Cadiz’s Mojave Desert Water Project

/in , /by /The Desert Sun (Palm Springs)by Sam Metz

A bill that could block a Los Angeles-based water supply company from pumping water out of a Mojave Desert aquifer passed through the Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday, extending the yearslong fight over whether the environmental impact of groundwater extraction merits additional scrutiny. The entire State Senate will vote on S.B. 307 later in the legislative session and, if it passes, it will need to also be approved by the State Assembly and signed by the governor. The bill would impose additional environmental review requirements on Cadiz Inc.’s water project, which would pump 16.3 billion gallons of groundwater out of an aquifer and transport it across public lands to the Colorado River Aqueduct. Cadiz projects the project could make them $2.4 billion.

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Prado Dam Rated A ‘High Urgency’ Risk After Spillway Problems Discovered

/in , /by /The Press-Enterprise (Riverside)by David Downey

Federal officials are working urgently to strengthen the spillway at Prado Dam near Corona to prevent it from failing in a major flood, which could imperil hundreds of thousands of people living downstream in Orange County. After a May inspection determined the dam’s spillway could perform poorly in a major flood, the dam’s risk rating was changed from “moderate urgency” to “high urgency.” Dena O’Dell, a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers spokeswoman, said Thursday, May 16, that the agency is taking immediate measures to reduce the risk that the spillway will fail. And she said the agency was preparing to launch a project in 2021 to bolster the spillway and raise it 20 feet.

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The Ultimate Water Panel: The Biggest Water Issues Facing San Diego and the South Bay

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(Chula Vista, Calif.) – Join the Otay Water District and Sweetwater Authority Board Chairs to learn more about water issues facing San Diego County and more specifically South Bay. The next Albondigas will be held on Friday, May 17 at Mangia Italiano in Chula Vista from 11:45 p.m. to 1 p.m. Topics to be covered at the event include Governor Gavin Newsom’s N-10-19 Executive Order on water supply planning, water recycling for 2019 and beyond, water legislation, and more.

 

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Hummingbirds in gardenPlanting native California plants that will attract birds, butterflies, and bees for pollination is a great way to make a beautiful and sustainable garden. Photo: Iva Castro/Pixabay

Setting Your Landscaping Objectives for Success

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When you’ve taken the time to learn about the concepts behind the watershed approach to creating a healthy and sustainable landscape, you should step back and consider the goals you want to achieve in your garden.

If you’re facing an ocean of grass lawn and you’ve never given much thought to landscaping goals, it might be difficult to know where to start. Here are a few ideas.

Saying goodbye to grass

Remove a thirsty lawn without using any chemicals, in a way that preserves the healthy soil microbes.

Plant local California native plants that will attract birds, butterflies, and bees for pollination.

Create a child or pet friendly garden without thorns or sticky grass seed heads.

Plant fruit trees, edible vines and shrubs, or vegetable gardens.

Using water efficiently

Build healthy living soil that will act like a sponge, even if it rains a lot.

Capture all the rainwater from the roof and re-routing downspouts to fill rain barrels instead of running onto hardscaping.

Convert spray irrigation to micro or drip irrigation, with the intention of turning it off after establishing low-water use landscaping.

Make pathways and driveways more permeable.

Create a garden as a personal art gallery

Make room for a small patio with room for an outdoor table or seating.

Add pathways, Zen gardens, and interesting materials and patterns.

Integrate beautiful objects such as an art piece, interesting container collection, or items like sundials.

One goal we can all support: creating a beautiful sustainable landscape that reduces your water use by 70 percent or more.


This article was inspired by the 71-page Sustainable Landscapes Program guidebook available at SustainableLandscapesSD.org. The Water Authority and its partners also offer other great resources for landscaping upgrades, including free WaterSmart classes at WaterSmartSD.org.

The Not-So-Crystal Clean History Of San Francisco’s Drinking Water

/in , /by /KQED News (Sacramento)by Rachael Myrow

To the west of Interstate 280 along the Peninsula south of San Francisco, there’s a long stretch of beautiful greenery. The hills are carpeted with trees, a thick bank of coastal fog hugs the ridge line, and nestled in the middle sit two crystal clear lakes. It all looks so pristine, untouched even. But it’s entirely man made. When Jackie Nuñez moved to San Mateo from Santa Barbara, she couldn’t help but notice the Crystal Springs reservoirs.

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$3 Million Earmarked For Three California Coastal Habitats By U.S. Department of the Interior

/in , /by /California Water News Daily

Three California coastal wetlands habitats will each be receiving $1 million for restoration projects according to an announcement by the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI). U.S. Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt announced last week that 11 coastal states will be sharing in a total of $20 million for 22 projects in 11 coastal states to protect, restore or enhance more than 7,000 acres of coastal wetlands and adjacent upland habitats under the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s National Coastal Wetlands Conservation Grant Program.

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Pumped Hydro 2 - SanV-WaterAuthority-May 2019

Water Authority Supports Bill to Spur Pumped Storage Projects

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A bill that the San Diego County Water Authority’s Board of Directors voted to support in March is scheduled for a hearing Thursday in the state Senate Appropriations Committee. The proposed state legislation promotes the development of pumped hydroelectric storage projects to help meet state energy and climate goals.

Senate Bill 772 by Sen. Steven Bradford of Gardena promotes the development of pumped hydroelectric storage projects to help meet state energy and climate goals.

The Board’s support for the legislation followed the March release of a research paper from a team led by UC San Diego Professor David G. Victor that emphasizes the benefits of expanding pumped hydro energy storage as a cost-effective way to help California meet its renewable energy goals and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Read the Pumped Energy Storage report here.

The Water Authority and the City of San Diego are exploring a potential pumped storage energy project at the San Vicente Reservoir that could store 4,000 megawatt-hours per day of energy, or 500 megawatts of capacity for eight hours.

Energy generated by renewable sources, like wind and solar, can be captured by energy storage facilities and then distributed then needed. Batteries and pumped energy storage will provide the needed energy storage for both short-term needs (batteries, less than 4 hours) and long-duration needs (pumped energy storage, 8 hours or more).

Large-scale, long-duration renewable energy source

A key to the San Vicente concept and others is development of statewide institutional and regulatory support for large-scale, long duration energy storage lasting up to eight hours. Pumped storage projects store solar and wind power during low-demand periods for use during high-demand periods, such as evenings when people are cooking, washing clothes and running air conditioners.

The State Energy Resources Conservation and Development Commission has identified bulk energy storage – including pumped hydroelectric storage – as a core strategy for integrating renewable energy resources into the California electrical grid and reducing greenhouse gases.

In addition, the white paper stresses the need for new state policies that will ensure that pumped energy storage projects enter commercial operations when they will be critically needed.

“To be consistent with California’s energy vision, active new policy support is needed to facilitate the development of pumped energy storage,” according to Victor’s paper. “Those policies should recognize the long lead times in building pumped energy storage projects (5 to 10 years). New policy efforts must begin now.

“Among the needed actions are state-backed support for some early projects that would jump start investment in this proven technology. This support can demonstrate viable business models and investment strategies that will pave the way for more private sector-led projects in the future.”

Providing ratepayer benefits

Pumped energy storage projects work like giant batteries by storing excess renewable energy during the day, when renewable power production peaks. Energy is released from the “battery” in the evening, when energy use increases, and renewable energy is not available.

Keeping the electrical grid reliable requires not only short-term energy storage, but long-duration, large-scale storage.

“Many expert studies have been performed that demonstrate the value of pumped energy storage, including CAISO’s Bulk Energy Storage Case Study, which found that a 500 megawatts (MW) pumped energy storage project in Southern California would provide ratepayers with a savings of up to $51M per year from improved efficiencies in system operation,” according to Victor’s white paper.

“Without significant new large-scale energy storage, California will likely be required to import more energy from other states, including potentially power generated with higher carbon emissions, such as coal,” the paper said. “The State will be unable to meet its renewable and climate goals reliably without large-scale energy storage.”

SB 772 is an attempt to address some of the issues identified by Victor and others. The legislation would require the California Independent System Operator, which runs the state’s power grid, to create a competitive bidding process by June 2022 to acquire a substantial quantity of long-duration energy storage – the type created by pumped hydroelectric storage.