The water in Poway is safe to drink — this after stormwater contaminated the city’s water supply forcing people to turn off their taps for a week. But now a political battle is brewing. “As elected officials, we need to step up and hold our colleagues accountable,” said Lakeside Water District Board Member Frank Hilliker. “The mishandling of the Poway contamination incident eroded the confidence of the public of all our water boards”. Board members from the Lakeside and Otay Water Districts laid the blame on Poway Mayor Steve Vaus during a news conference Tuesday.
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California’s storms do plenty of good, including replenishing the state’s water supply by filling its reservoirs and dampening the risk of wildfires. But the rainwater runoff also carries heavy pollutants that wash directly onto the shore, creating a toxic mix that’s unsafe for beachgoers. Anyone who’s visited a beach after it rains has encountered such stormwater pollution, the unfiltered trash that piles onto the sand after flowing from rooftops, sidewalks and streets, picking up a trail of pesticides, bacteria, oil and grease before traveling through the storm drains.
https://www.waternewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/water-news-network.png00Mike Leehttps://www.waternewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/water-news-network.pngMike Lee2019-12-11 09:31:522019-12-16 12:11:27Polluted Stormwater is Fouling L.A. Beaches. Little Has Been Done About It, Report Finds
The National City Fire Department is learning more about the water system it relies on, thanks to some specialized training for firefighters from Sweetwater Authority staff.
Firefighters wanted to learn more about the water distribution system and where the city’s water originates. The department also wanted to review the location of Sweetwater Authority’s treatment facilities, pump stations, and learn about any areas of lower water pressure or dead-end hydrants.
The design of water distribution system facilities such as pipes, tanks, and pumps is dictated by fire protection requirements.
Sweetwater Authority Engineering Manager Luis Valdez and Director of Distribution Greg Snyder created and held three training sessions at Fire Station 34 in October and November to accommodate the department’s three shifts of 40 firefighters.
“The training provides the opportunity to work closely with National City Fire Department, providing detailed information about the water system we manage and operate,” said Snyder. “Through this training, stronger working relationships are formed, which improves the flow of information between agencies. When communities are served by local agencies working together collaboratively it gives our community a high level of service.”
Communication aids mutually beneficial partnership serving National City
Sweetwater Authority Director of Distribution Greg Snyder (left) and Engineering Manager Luis Valdez train National City firefighters at Station 34. Photo: Sweetwater Authority
“Sweetwater Authority supports the fire department by designing, operating, and maintaining a reliable water system to allow the fire department to fulfill its core mission of fire protection and safety,” said Valdez. “The Authority also supports the department by providing expertise to confirm that fire protection requirements established by the fire department can be met by existing and planned water facilities.”
Valdez said the training gave firefighting personnel specific knowledge of its city’s water system, ranging from an overall perspective of the water supply, to the specific design and operational details of its water facilities and how they impact firefighters ability to protect the community.
“A fire department equipped with good knowledge of the water system that knows how to effectively coordinate with Sweetwater Authority during routine and emergency events will be more effective in providing fire protection and safety for its customers,” said Valdez.
A map at Station 34 displays the location of all city fire hydrants. Photo: Sweetwater Authority
Ongoing communication with Sweetwater Authority personnel during an incident response can offer firefighters options to improve distribution system operations. Depending on the nature of the emergency, coordinated responses may range from system operation changes to the mobilizing of emergency power generations to keep facilities in service.
https://www.waternewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/NCFD_4133-845X450.jpg450845Gayle Falkenthalhttps://www.waternewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/water-news-network.pngGayle Falkenthal2019-12-11 08:17:182019-12-11 08:17:20National City Firefighters Get WaterSmart with Sweetwater Authority
The Valley Center Municipal Water District has been advised by the California State Water Resources Control Board that its Cool Valley Reservoir Cover Replacement Project was recognized by the Environmental Protection Agency’s new AQUARIUS Program as an “Exceptional Project,” among only 10 identified as such nationwide.
To focus its efforts on future Colorado River negotiations, the Imperial Irrigation District Board of Directors has authorized its general manager and management team to work with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to resolve a longstanding issue over the district’s 2010 pre-delivery of mitigation water to the Salton Sea.
Nearly a decade ago, to satisfy mitigation obligations for 2011 and part of 2012, to meet existing permit requirements in support of the Quantification Settlement Agreement and to avoid associated financial risk, the district pre-delivered 46,546 acre-feet of its consumptive use entitlement to the Salton Sea.
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San Diego officials are continuing to pressure the federal government to fix the border region’s sewage issues.
Last week, the cities of Imperial Beach, Chula Vista, Coronado and San Diego, as well as San Diego County, Port of San Diego, San Diego Regional Water Quality Control Board and the California State Lands Commission, passed resolutions to recommend federal action on cross-border pollution in the Tijuana River Valley.
Tijuana is built into hillsides, where rainwater — or sewage when the wastewater system fails — naturally drains toward the U.S.-Mexico border and into the Pacific Ocean.
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After a weekend storm walloped San Francisco, officials say preventing flood damage from powerful rains in vulnerable areas of the city largely remains a pipe dream.
A storm that inundated San Francisco with more than an inch of rain in a single hour Saturday flooded two Muni light-rail stations, snarled traffic on Highway 101 and forced residents in parts of West Portal to wade through waist-deep water that surged into homes, causing thousands of dollars of damage.
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This water will flow thousands of miles, eventually feeding people, farms, and the natural world on the vast, dry Indus plain. Many of the more than 200 million people in the downstream basin rely on water that comes from this stream and others like it.
But climate change is hitting those high mountain regions more brutally than the world on average. That change is putting the “water towers” like this one, and the billions of people that depend on them, in ever more precarious positions. New research published Monday in Nature identifies the most important and vulnerable water towers in the world.
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Before Democrats managed to secure provisions to address a class of toxic chemicals in an annual defense measure, negotiations fell apart at the hands of their own members.
For months, Democrats pushed to attach provisions in the National Defense Authorization Act that would designate a class of 5,000 toxic chemicals, known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), as hazardous.
Doing so would spark federal cleanup standards. Democrats also wanted EPA to set a strong drinking water standard.
The Supreme Court won’t review a long-running legal debate over
the extent of states’ water permitting authority for major pipelines,
hydroelectric dams, and other projects.
The justices on Dec. 9 declined to take up California
Trout v. Hoopa Valley Tribe, a case focused on Section 401 of the Clean
Water Act, which calls on states to ensure that proposals that require federal
permits meet water quality standards within their borders.
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