With our streams and rivers running fast and high and all the snow piling up in the High Sierra, it certainly looks like California is well out of the drought, but what about beneath the surface? “Right now our basin, fortunately, is at 98 percent full,” said Carol Mahoney, Manager of Integrated Water Services for Zone 7, the water supply and flood control agency that serves Livermore and the Amador Valley.
As the sea level rises, it could impact more than the California coastline. The rising water could impact the Sacramento region. Some researchers said the rise could threaten levees in the area and increase the risk of flooding throughout the Delta and the Sacramento Valley. UC Davis watershed science researcher Jay Lund explained that the sea level rise is gradual — about an inch every eight years – and has been occurring since the last ice age ended thousands of years ago.
A California Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) on Monday proposed statewide procurement for renewable resources, finding that proposed resource plans from utilities and other power providers will not reduce greenhouse gases enough to meet state goals. The proposed decision from ALJ Julie Fitch would refuse to adopt the combined integrated resource plan (IRP) from the state’s utilities and community choice aggregators (CCA) because it “does not meet the GHG emissions goals” and could challenge reliability. Instead, Fitch proposed a new statewide Preferred System Portfolio that would guide generation decisions out to 2030.
Construction costs have surged across the nation over the past year as prices for materials used in construction have risen. At the same time, contractors are struggling to meet project deadlines due to a shortage of skilled workers, construction trade industry publication Constructive Dive reported on March 18. Those higher construction costs are impacting local agencies, including the San Diego County Water Authority. Agency staff briefed the Board of Directors’ Engineering and Operations Committee in mid-March on how those market changes are driving up costs of infrastructure and maintenance projects.
La Mesa, Calif.—Local high school students were honored for their winning photos at an awards ceremony during Helix Water District’s special board meeting on March 20, 2019. Seventy-four students from four schools entered the annual high school photo contest, highlighting the importance and beauty of water in everyday life.
South Coast agencies purchased more than 27,000 acre-feet of supplemental water during four drought years to make up for lowered allocations from Lake Cachuma and the State Water Project, and for most of those deals, payback includes water in addition to money. Agencies’ so-called “water debt” means that when the city of Santa Barbara purchased from the Mojave Water Agency last year, for example, it was committing to paying back 1 acre-foot of water for every 4 acre-feet it purchased.
Another group of top state officials visited the Salton Sea this week to promise that this time, things will be different and progress will be made to restore the fast-drying water body. The California Water Resources Control Board on Tuesday convened a required annual check-in meeting with a variety of state and local agencies on how and whether efforts to protect public health and restore wildlife habitat are progressing. They met at the lake’s North Shore Yacht Club community center to hear updates and to try to rally residents and experts. Some responded with guarded optimism, seeing Gov. Gavin Newsom’s appointment of top officials who are familiar with the area as a possible sign of long-awaited change.
As a former member of the U.S. Senate and chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, I was proud to help lead the charge to save the Salton Sea. In December, I was excited to learn that Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris and Congressman Raul Ruiz secured Farm Bill legislation that provides a pathway to federal Salton Sea funding. The federal government owns almost half of the Salton Sea, but has not lived up to its responsibility to stop the public health and environmental disaster unfolding there. This Farm Bill victory allows for a large, stable source of federal funding for the sea.
San Diego public utilities officials said Wednesday that they have implemented most recommendations made by the city auditor last year after thousands of customers were overbilled by faulty meter readers. Some key reforms still need to be implemented, the deputy chief operating officer told members of the city council’s audit committee, and others have yet to be validated by the city auditor. “Eighty percent of the recommendations we have completed, pending auditor review, which is a commitment we made back when the audit was released,” said Johnnie Perkins, the deputy COO tapped by Mayor Kevin Faulconer to oversee reforms at the public utilities department.
Three bipartisan energy storage bills were introduced in Congress last week, but none would provide investment tax credits, which industry has sought to increase the competitiveness of the technology. “I think the question, in our minds, is going to be do these folks see [storage ITC] as something that’s a near term concern or do they see this as something they want to put into a larger, longer conversation,” Jason Burwen, policy vice president at the Energy Storage Association, told Utility Dive.
The Water News Network is San Diego County’s source for water news and information.
