Kimberly Thorner was seated on the San Diego County Water Authority Board of Directors on January 6, 2021, representing the Olivenhain Municipal Water District. Director Thorner serves on the Administrative and Finance, Audit and Engineering and Operations committees.
California water suppliers could face state limits on the concentration of two so-called “forever chemicals” before the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency sets national standards. Maximum contaminant levels for perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS) are on track to be in place in California in 2023, Darrin Polhemus, deputy director for drinking water programs at the State Water Resources Control Board, said during a board meeting Tuesday about agency priorities for the year.
The mountaintops rumble to life unnaturally each year as snow clouds darken the sky across the West.
Open flames burst from the throats of metal chimneys, mounted on squat towers nestled among the peaks. With a low hiss, puffs of particles belch from their mouths into the air, where the wind catches them and whisks them away.
San Diego is seeking input from the public on a new water plan introduced by Mayor Todd Gloria. Under the 2020 Urban Water Management Plan, the city would develop more than half of the city’s water locally by 2045.
Of concern is potentially migrating dioxins from pentachlorophenol, a wood preservative that was used at the mill site before being banned in the mid-1980s. In response, the California Department of Toxic Substances Control has hired an engineering firm to do a new round of testing at the site.
Pacific Gas and Electric will pay to remove soil possibly tainted by century-old gas plants and investigate groundwater contamination in a San Francisco shoreline area under the terms of a deal announced Monday.
The agreement represents the third and final settlement reached in a lawsuit filed in 2014 over pollution from manufactured gas plants operated by PG&E in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
Editor’s Note: This feature highlights new members of the San Diego County Water Authority’s 36-member Board of Directors. Each of the Water Authority’s 24 member agencies appoints at least one representative to the Board, which sets policy for the Water Authority.
Who: Kimberly Thorner was seated on the Board of Directors on January 6, 2021, representing the Olivenhain Municipal Water District. Director Thorner serves on the Administrative and Finance, Audit and Engineering and Operations committees for the Water Authority. She was formerly a member of the Fiscal Sustainability Task Force.
Background/Education: Thorner earned a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Colorado (Boulder) and a juris doctor from Thomas Jefferson School of Law in San Diego. She began her tenure with OMWD in October 1996 and was unanimously selected by the Board of Directors to become OMWD’s fourth general manager beginning January 1, 2007.
Water Industry Affiliations:
Chair of the San Diego Local Agency Formation Commission Special Districts Advisory Committee; San Diego LAFCO Advisory Committee on Rainbow-Fallbrook Reorganization; San Diego LAFCO Subcommittee on the Update to Agricultural and Open Space Lands Policy, and the San Diego LAFCO Subcommittee on GSA’s.
San Diego Integrated Regional Water Management Regional Advisory Committee
WateReuse California (WRCA) Board of Trustees (currently Secretary of the WRCA Board)
Association of California Water Agencies Federal Affairs Committee
North San Diego Water Reuse Coalition
David C. McCollom Water Treatment Plant, Prior Project Manager
Q: How did you get interested in water issues?
A: Water is my life. I am quickly approaching my 25th year in the water industry. I started locally, working on treatment plant projects, dams, outreach and conservation. As my tenure in the industry expanded, so did my participation at an expanded level – being involved in statewide and federal water issues, committees and boards. I’ve never had a boring day in the water industry!
Q: What are your priorities or interests as a Board member?
A: My first priorities are the basics – safe, reliable, and affordable water for the San Diego region. None of the member agencies can be successful in providing safe, reliable, and affordable water if SDCWA is not successful. I am looking forward to participating in the continued success of SDCWA. My second priorities are the essentials – transparency, openness and collaboration. Working together openly and honestly in order to move forward for the advantage of the region is important.
Q: Besides maintaining safe and reliable water supplies, what do you see as the top three issues facing the San Diego region?
A: After Safe and Reliable supplies, I would say: Affordability. Dwindling Demand. Maintaining Current Infrastructure.
Q: What do you like to do when you are not working?
A: I’m always working, unless I am off the grid summiting a mountain or spending time with my two daughters. I guide friends up Mt. Whitney and Rim2Rim of the Grand Canyon every year. Someone has to check the snowpack up there in the Sierra and the flow of the Colorado River in the canyon!
The Water Authority’s Board of Directors typically meets on the fourth Thursday of each month. The Board invites the public to attend its monthly meetings and to comment on agenda items or other matters before the Board. For meeting times, agendas and documents, go to www.sdcwa.org/board-directors.
In earlier days of the COVID-19 pandemic, before diagnostic testing was widely available, it was difficult for public health officials to keep track of the infection’s spread or predict where outbreaks were likely to occur. Attempts to get ahead of the coronavirus that causes the disease are still complicated by the fact that people can be infected and spread the virus even without experiencing symptoms themselves.
We’re facing another very dry year, which follows one of the driest on record for Northern California and one of the hottest on record statewide.
The 2012-16 drought caused unprecedented stress to California’s ecosystems and pushed many native species to the brink of extinction, disrupting water management throughout the state. Are we ready to manage our freshwater ecosystems through another drought?
Drought has forced several states to rethink how they use the Colorado River, but Utah is trying to figure out how to get more water out of it. Utah’s plan to build a pipeline from Lake Powell to the St. George area has raised eyebrows from the six other Colorado River Basin states. In September, those states wrote a letter reminding Utah of their history of collaboration. It concluded by saying that the pipeline could result in litigation. Utah’s response was to create a new water board.
