Three years ago, water began seeping out of yards and pooling in roadways in the Sacramento Pocket neighborhood.
But the water wasn’t from a recent storm.
“It hadn’t rained for a couple of weeks,” said Rick Johnson, executive director of the Sacramento Area Flood Control Agency.
More rain and snow area headed to Northern California on Tuesday, although the storm won’t be nearly enough to make up for what’s been a relatively dry January.
The National Weather Service said rain is expected to start falling at around 7 a.m. Tuesday, just in time for the morning commute. Light snow should hit the Sierra Nevada a couple of hours later, said NWS forecaster Craig Shoemaker.
We all know what rolls downhill and smells bad. Nowhere is it more true than in the Tijuana River Valley in southern San Diego County, where for years toxic cross-border sewage spills have created the biggest ongoing water pollution and environmental justice crisis in the United States. While some progress has been made in recent negotiations with Mexico to fund solutions, it could take years to realize significant improvements.
A new slate of officers were ushered in to the Ramona Municipal Water District (RMWD) Jan. 14 just before its board of directors approved two construction contracts estimated to cost more than $1 million apiece.
RMWD Board President Jim Robinson was an easy choice to serve a second term as the board’s president. He quickly received unanimous support among the four directors present, with Vice President Jim Hickle absent.
After years of playing third fiddle to solar and wind power, geothermal energy is poised to start growing again in California.
Three local energy providers have signed contracts this month for electricity from new geothermal power plants, one in Imperial County near the Salton Sea and the other in Mono County along the Eastern Sierra. The new plants will be the first geothermal facilities built in California in nearly a decade — potentially marking a long-awaited turning point for a technology that could play a critical role in the state’s transition to cleaner energy sources.
The Trump administration has put one of the largest new water projects on the Colorado River on the fast track, raising concerns among environmentalists.
Utah first proposed building a 140-mile pipeline from Lake Powell on the Utah-Arizona border more than a decade ago. The plan, however, was waylaid by environmental and other reviews during the Obama administration.
But last fall, the Utah Division of Water Resources updated the proposal, removing a hydropower plant and cutting $100 million from its price tag.
The move also changed which federal agency had jurisdiction over it — from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to the Bureau of Reclamation.
One by one, small mammals and amphibians living within a construction zone in Mission Trails Regional Park are being relocated to safe areas. Protecting sensitive species is one part of the Mission Trails Project.
A team of biologists from the San Diego County Water Authority, AECOM, and the San Diego Natural History Museum began surveying for and relocating the wildlife in preparation for a new underground reservoir. The reservoir will be constructed in the western portion of the park. The habitat surveys and wildlife relocation program span 15 acres of the park and are designed to protect sensitive species in the project area from construction activities.
California’s 600 certified water quality testing labs will face strict new accreditation standards in the near future. While final hearings still need to take place on the draft regulations before adoption, the City of Escondido Water Quality Lab isn’t waiting. Escondido is working now to adopt the anticipated regulations.
Escondido is one of only two California labs already compliant with the draft regulations, which require more stringent quality controls.
The laboratory is certified by the California State Water Resources Control Board’s Environmental Laboratory Accreditation Program to conduct 155 different certified test methods to ensure Escondido water and wastewater safety, including reclaimed water samples, stormwater samples, drinking water samples, wastewater from various stages throughout the treatment process, and industrial wastewater collected from permitted industries.
As part of compliance with the new standards, Laboratory Technician Ken Brown was promoted to the lab’s Quality Assurance Officer. Photo: City of Escondido
City of Escondido Laboratory Superintendent Nicki Branch supervises the 13-person lab staff. She said the decision was made to work toward Environmental Lab Accreditation Program compliance right away rather than wait for formal implementation.
“We thought, this regulation is coming,” said Branch. “It’s going to be the law. Let’s just go ahead and comply with it now. Each water quality laboratory has to be certified by the state. Adding the [proposed] standards adds more quality assurance and quality control procedures for everything you do in the lab.”
Damien Wong (left) and Michelle Sohn at work in the Escondido Water Quality Lab. Photo: City of Escondido
Branch said the standards implement more rigorous reporting, not new processes.
“It takes what we are doing now and makes the data more defensible,” she said. “We can show the chain of custody and verify our procedures, from sampling to analyzing to reporting. The process protects the integrity of the data.”
The proposed new requirements are based on 2016 standards developed by The NELAC Institute, a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting “the generation of environmental data of known and documented quality through an open, inclusive, and transparent process that is responsive to the needs of the community.”
Brett Kelley conducts a test in the City of Escondido Water Quality Lab. Photo: City of Escondido
Branch said it took a full year to implement the additional sampling and paperwork. Once the City of Escondido completed the process, she realized her team gained valuable insight other labs would need. She encouraged her staff to submit abstracts to speak on the proposed new regulations at the annual 2019 California Water Environment Association conference.
“We had five people speaking who had never made a presentation before,” said Branch. “I told them ‘You are now the experts.’”
“We expect to give more presentations this year,” said Branch. “Labs will need to do this. We can help people, counsel them, and give them tips. People are apprehensive. It’s human nature. ‘No, not more regulation!’ But when you are a lab doing drinking water analysis, you want the lab to be that stringent and that accurate with quality assurance procedures.”
Personal pride in the achievement, improved teamwork, and sharing their new knowledge as subject matter experts were unexpected benefits.
Abundant and clean water supplies will be essential for California’s people, communities and economy to thrive in the future. Yet, the state faces significant challenges on the road to water security.
To address those difficulties, Governor Gavin Newsom’s administration has released a draft “Water Resilience Portfolio” designed to ensure that California’s water systems, both natural and constructed, will adequately support our growing state in the future.
Earlier this month the Newsom administration laid out its vision for addressing the linked issues of water and climate in two key policy documents: the much-anticipated draft of its Water Resilience Portfolio (WRP) and the governor’s budget proposal. The WRP, which resulted from an April 2019 executive order, was developed with extensive input from state agencies and stakeholders from around California.
